January 18, 2017 - Pittsburgh City Paper

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 01.18/01.25.2017

Valerie June EVENTS FREE GOOD FRIDAYS PRESENTED BY UPMC HEALTH PLAN Each Friday in January, enjoy free museum admission, a cash bar, and Pittsburgh’s own DJ Huck Finn from 5-10 pm.

Free Good Fridays are presented by UPMC Health Plan.

FREE

1.19 – 8pm SOUND SERIES: LEE RANALDO & STEVE GUNN Warhol entrance space FREE parking in Warhol lot Tickets $15/$12 Members and students

1.20 – 7pm MY PERFECT BODY: JAMES ELKINS LECTURE The Warhol theater Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Andy Warhol: My Perfect Body.

FREE

1.31 – 8pm SOUND SERIES: HISS GOLDEN MESSENGER The Warhol theater Tickets $15/$12 Members & students

2.12 – 11am VINTAGE VALENTINES WORKSHOP AT ACE HOTEL Ace Hotel – Gym (East Liberty) Ace Hotel Pittsburgh is The Warhol’s official hotel sponsor.

FREE

2.11 – 8pm Carnegie Lecture Hall (Oakland)

The Warhol welcomes Valerie June on a tour supporting her latest release The Order of Time. Deftly blending elements of folk, soul, blues, and Appalachian traditional sensibilities into a strikingly unique and timeless sound, June stands in a long and storied line of unique performers in Memphis, the city where she began to hone her craft. Her voice and vocal delivery have drawn comparisons to icons as varied as Billie Holiday, Dolly Parton, and the Carter Family.

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.

This performance is co-presented with Calliope: The Pittsburgh Folk Music Society.

Tickets $20/$15 Members & students; visit www.warhol.org or call 412.237.8300 NEWS

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 01.18/01.25.2017

01.18/01.25.2017 VOLUME 27 + ISSUE 03

[EDITORIAL] Editor CHARLIE DEITCH News Editor REBECCA ADDISON Arts & Entertainment Editor BILL O’DRISCOLL Associate Editor AL HOFF Web Producer ALEX GORDON Staff Writers RYAN DETO, CELINE ROBERTS Interns JOHN HAMILTON, KATEY LADIKA, AMANI NEWTON, ALONA WILLIAMS

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News 06 Views 10 Weird 11 Music 19 Arts 26 Events 29 Taste 33

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THIS WEEK

ONLINE

“AMBRIDGE NEEDS THE HELP OF THE PEOPLE WHO ARE LIVING AND WORKING THERE.”

www.pghcitypaper.com

Read our story about Prototype PGH, the new feminist makerspace in Oakland, on page 9, and check out our slideshow at www.pghcitypaper.com.

The Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs on Jan. 15.

Check out our photo slideshow from the Jan. 13 Downtown pep rally at www.pghcitypaper.com.

Stay tuned for another slideshow from the Jan. 22 playoff game.

{CP PHOTOS BY LUKE THOR TRAVIS}

In the latest CP Longform installment, we review the decade-old case of a convicted murderer maintaining his innocence. Read it online at www.pghcitypaper.com.

CITY PAPER

INTERACTIVE

Our featured #CPReaderArt photo from last week is a great photo of the Rachel Carson Bridge by @jpdiroll. Use #CPReaderArt to share your local photos with us for your chance to be featured next!

Receive the latest from City Paper straight to your inbox every day by signing up for our newsletter at www.pghcitypaper.com.

Protesters outside Donald Trump’s campaign visit to Ambridge in October 2016

INDEPENDENT PROGRESS HEN Donald Trump campaigned

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in Ambridge in October 2016, he spoke about the area’s decline and promised he could bring back jobs in the steel industry. The soon-to-be Presidentelect gave rally-goers a vision of hope, but also reminded them their region was doing “lousy” and to disregard anybody who told them otherwise.

“Don’t let anybody tell you you are doing great,” said Trump to the crowd.

After Trump’s victory, large out-of-town publications picked up on this theme and ran stories about how white working-class, Democratic voters were swayed by Trump and helped secure his victory in Pennsylvania and nationwide. The New York Times went so far as to suggest that Ambridge’s decline turned its voters into solid Trump supporters. “A Pennsylvania Town in

Decline and Despair Looks to Donald Trump,” read the Nov. 9 Times headline.

But for many who live and work in the borough of about 7,000 people, that assessment is far from Ambridge’s reality.

In actuality, Hillary Clinton won Ambridge

As Donald Trump prepares to be sworn in as the 45th president, Ambridge isn’t waiting around for his help {BY RYAN DETO} by 12 points. And many say the real Ambridge is a place where a lot of heavyindustry facilities are still in operation, if not at the heyday level of the 1940s. The real Ambridge, they say, is where borough

officials, community leaders and businessowners have been working together for years to revitalize the business district.

And it’s working. New businesses have opened or soon will be along Ambridge’s main street; the town ended 2016 with a budget surplus; and it secured an “A” bond grade from credit-rating agency Standard and Poor’s. This is the borough many residents want people to see.

Three years ago, Felicia Mycyk started Ambridge Connection, a news website dedicated to everything Ambridge. The borough regularly makes the news for stories about gun violence and drug busts (it consistently ranks as one of the most crime-ridden municipalities in Beaver County, according to federal Uniform Crime Reporting data), but Mycyk’s website covers all the happenings there, not just the sensational.

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GALLERY CRAWL in the Cultural District

Friday, January 20, 2017 5:30 – 10 pm

FREE ADMISSION TO CRAWL EVENTS

TRUSTARTS.ORG/Crawl

crawl after dark COVER CHARGES MAY APPLY

20+ events including:

#CrawlPGH

Wood Street Galleries David Spriggs and Matthijs Munnik | US debuts of light installations newly commissioned specifically for Wood Street Galleries.

Verve 360 bombyx collective | Presenting PASSAGE, exploring how adults often live more in the past and future than the present.

925 Liberty Winter Night Market | The Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership presents an indoor market featuring some of Pittsburgh’s most creative independent vendors.

SPACE The Domesticity of Abandonment | International exhibition exploring the idea

Sponsors:

of abandonment from a broad socio/political and economical context.

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INDEPENDENT PROGRESS, CONTINUED FROM PG. 06

“The goal is to show what is really happening in Ambridge,” she says. “What I see is that there are a lot of groups that are trying to tell a better story.”

She mentions the recent opening of Muscles’ Gym in downtown Ambridge, two new restaurants setting up shop on Duss Avenue, and antique shops starting up near Old Economy Village, a preserved Harmonite historical site. And volunteers are beautifying the town with tree plantings and a community garden.

“But you don’t hear nothing about these stories,” says Mycyk. “All you hear about is people getting shot, or stories about drug busts.”

Also, Zadock Dismuke, of the Ambridge Police department, says 2016 reports show crime is decreasing overall.

Mycyk says negativity surrounding Ambridge was perpetuated when Trump visited and it starkly divided the town.

“We hit the national stage and we had negative press.

What I saw when [Trump] came into town, was that everyone was divided. It divided us,” she says. “There are people investing to make Ambridge great.

People are moving this community forward.”

Some of those people are Matt Salopek, Rick Hendricks and Chris Villella. The Ambridgearea natives opened Bridgetown Taphouse in 2015. Salopek says Ambridge needed a neighborhood gathering spot that was welcoming to everyone. That’s why he and his partners started the taphouse as a nonsmoking bar with an extensive draft list and unpretentious food, like wings and burgers.

“I wouldn’t say that people are here to drink away their sorrows with the mill’s closing,” says Salopek. “They are here to enjoy a drink in a safe environment in Ambridge.” And he says that this idea is catching on: “If you would have told me there was a craft-beer bar next to a yoga studio 10 years ago on Merchant Street, I would have laughed.”

Salopek took slight issue with the New York Times portrayal of Ambridge. The Times visited Fred’s Divot, a well-known dive bar, on the night of the election and quoted Ambridge locals lamenting “open borders” and the Affordable Care Act. “We need a change,” John Gaguzis told the Times. “We’ve got to get rid of the Democrats that support people that don’t want to work.” But Salopek wonders why reporters didn’t walk 200 yards down the street to his bar and see another side of the borough.

Ambridge native Paul Hertneky says Ambridge is different than how outsiders

want to portray it, and he rejects the idea that Rust Belt mill towns are solidly Trump supporters who are frustrated with the state of their communities. His book Rust Belt Boy, a collection of essays about growing up in Ambridge, made a big impression on the town when it was published last year. (Every source City Paper spoke to mentioned it.) “[New York Times reporters] should have gone to the Bridgetown Taphouse,” says Hertneky, who himself now lives in New Hampshire. “It is pretty easy to find people who want to celebrate Ambridge, but probably not at Fred’s Divot.”

On paper, Ambridge appears to be a great example of Trump Town USA. It’s mostly white, it lost a lot of jobs when American Bridge Company (the town’s namesake) left and the steel industry collapsed in the 1980s, and its 2015 poverty rate is at 21 percent, much higher than the 12 percent regional average.

And the borough’s residential neighborhoods literally show signs that Trump is popular among some residents; two months after the election, several Trump yard signs were still standing along Maplewood Avenue, for example.

However, Hertneky says that locals are gaining momentum to improve Ambridge, and aren’t waiting around for Trump to make the borough great again.

“Ambridge needs the help of the people who are living and working there. ... It will be brought back by the people who are there and the people who want to go there, and its belief in itself as a community,” he says.

London Cain was drawn to Ambridge after reading Rust Belt Boy and meeting the people working toward revitalizing the borough. The Sewickley resident decided it was an ideal place to start a community playhouse, which he named Iron Horse Theatre in homage to Ambridge’s industrial past and present.

“You are going to get negative attitudes when [people are] talking big about a place like Ambridge,” says Cain. “But somebody has to work to make it better and I am just one of those people.

“I have gotten to know this community and I’ve fallen in love. This could be the next Lawrenceville.”

For Ambridge Borough Manager Joe Kauer, people like Cain investing in Ambridge’s business district are key to advancing the town.

“The next step is battling perception,” says Kauer. “If that’s what everyone thinks of Ambridge as a ‘reality,’ then we have to

“IT IS PRETTY EASY TO FIND PEOPLE WHO WANT TO CELEBRATE AMBRIDGE.”

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work against it. We have to find a way as a community to reinvent the way that people see Ambridge.”

Another false perception Kauer says he has to battle is that Ambridge has no industry. Ambridge’s industrial park, the Port of Ambridge, has no vacancies and one of the tenants, Sippel Steel, is actually fabricating metal for local construction projects. “Just go down to Port of Ambridge and watch all the trucks coming across the bridge,” says Kauer.

But Kauer acknowledges the town’s problems. According to Ambridge Connection, last August, at a panel on the drug-addiction epidemic, Ambridge Police Chief James Mann said that the borough experienced 40 overdoses and five deaths in connection with drug use in the first eight months of 2016. That’s well above Pennsylvania’s average for overdoses and drug-related deaths.

Kauer also realizes that one end of Ambridge’s main street, Merchant Street, has several vacancies that need to be filled in order for the borough to thrive. But he’s hopeful.

“It takes a couple of people to take that first step,” says Kauer. “If people see it as

successful, then it will attract more people.”

Kauer is dedicated to showcasing the impact local government can have. “If I can help promote what good government is doing about Ambridge borough, then I can get people to realize the reality versus the false perceptions.”

Experts agree. Chuck Marohn of Strong Towns, a national media nonprofit advocating for financially resilient development, says change has to come from a local level.

“We had this idea that everything needed to be from a huge savior from the outside,” says Marohn. “When we grow slowly and incrementally, not only do cities grow more prosperous, but the people there share more in the growth.”

Marohn, in a thinly veiled criticism of Trump, adds that we can’t “just look for the big sugar daddy to replace what is lost, and build up a utopia.”

And Kauer isn’t worrying much about the president. He’s more focused on improving the borough and keeping Ambridge on the new path it has forged.

“We are still behind in the region, but [Ambridge] is coming back, there is a future here,” says Kauer. “You don’t have to build it new, it is already here.”

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mean, this happens almost daily.

“This is the problem of 2017; pervasive, subconscious bias where people don’t even realize they’re being discriminatory, but the knowledge and contribution of women is systemically undervalued.”

Prototype is part of the Sprout Fund 100 Days campaign, which is awarding grants of up to $5,000 for innovative projects. But unfortunately, as part of the campaign, Prototype is competing against dozens of other projects in the categories of labor and women.

“They’re all incredibly worthy,” says Larson.

More than 300 people came to Prototype’s grand opening on Jan. 8 ,and so far 75 people have signed up to be members. Last week, member Stacey Becker stopped by to pick up fliers to spread the word about the new space, then stayed to work on her knitting. She’s making hats for the Women’s March on Washington, on Jan. 21.

“Mostly I just joined because I wanted to support what they’re doing here,” Becker said, “the effort to create a space that is feminist.”

PROTOTYPE PGH New feminist makerspace comes to Pittsburgh {BY REBECCA ADDISON} FROM AN INITIAL peek, Prototype PGH, the new Oakland-based feminist makerspace, doesn’t look like much. In the infant organization’s room in the old Blumcraft building, tools hang on the wall and there’s a unicorn mask in the corner, but what you see isn’t all of what you get.

Louise Larson and Erin Oldynski, the brains behind Prototype, say the organization is rhizomatic in nature: “‘Rhizomatic’ refers to a type of plant that has roots that are very expansive,” says Larson. “The comparison with Prototype is that we are not just one room.”

Members of the makerspace won’t just have access to the tools and resources in Prototype’s room in the Blumcraft building.

The organizers are also working out part- creating a space that was feminist for a nerships with the other tenants, including couple of years. We started imagining a space where feminism could meet a woodworking studio in the basement.

Like Prototype, the Blumcraft build- technology education.”

They’ll be offering “pay-what-makesing itself is a work in progress — much of the space is still being renovated, in- you-happy” lectures and workshops; cluding a theater where Prototype will topics so far include how to negotiate a host workshops. Other tenants include higher wage, soldering your own syntheorganizations like 1HoodMedia, a socially sizer, and doing 3-D modeling. There are a conscious collective of hip-hop artists lot of workshops scheduled over the next and activists; WERK, which specializes in 100 days to coincide with the first days of Donald Trump’s presidency. textiles, wearables, home Many believe Trump’s adgoods and fabrication; and ministration will set back Accessible Recording, a rewomen’s rights. cording studio and creative “We’re being very inlearning space. tentional about having “It feels exciting to be a ton of workshops durhere right now,” says Larson. ing the first 100 days of During Prototype’s introductory period, membership costs $25 Trump’s presidency,” says Oldynski. “This for six months or $50 for one year and in- is very much a way to combat a lot of the cludes weekly studio time, access to equip- sexism and discriminatory remarks that ment, Wi-Fi and coffee. So far, the equip- we’ve seen the incoming president make.”

Larson and Oldynski say the idea for ment includes a soldering iron, a scroll saw, hand and power tools, a sewing machine, the feminist makerspace was born out jewelry-making tools, a vinyl cutter and of the discrimination women face in the STEM (science, technology, engineering a typewriter.

The space’s premier tools are two BoXYZ and math) fields.

“Women are vastly underrepredevices — a combination desktop CNC sented in the [STEM fields]. Most milling machine, 3-D printer and E women are told from an early laser engraver. The device was R MO age, whether explicitly or iminvented at TechShop — both PHOTOS LINE. plicitly, that they don’t belong in ONw Larson and Oldysnki work at the w w at r e p these fields,” says Oldynski. “We a Pittsburgh location — and was p ty pghci m .co need a space where women and made in Homewood. all feminist allies can create.” “[Members] get access to According to the Elephant in equipment, to workshops, and perhaps most importantly, to a community of the Valley report released last year, 84 people who are passionate about equity, percent of women have been told by colinnovation and technology,” says Oldynski. leagues that they are too aggressive in the “Louise and I have been talking about workplace. The survey also found that 88

“THEY’RE ALL INCREDIBLY WORTHY.”

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Prototype co-founders Louise Larson and Erin Oldynski

percent of women have had clients address questions to male colleagues which should have been addressed to them, an example of unconscious bias.

“I have often experienced being in meetings with men where my knowledge and expertise is completely dismissed or not acknowledged at all,” says Oldynski. “I

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460 Melwood Ave., Suite 202, Oakland. prototype.pgh@gmail.com

Annual Publication of the Monthly Board Meetings Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority

Sunshine Act Notice Notice is hereby given that the 2017 annual and regular board meetings of the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority will be held at 10:00 A.M. In the second floor board room at Penn Liberty Plaza I, 1200 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15222, on the following dates: January 27 February 24 (ANNUAL)

March 24 April 28

May 26

September 15

June 23

October 27

July 28

November 17 December 15

NO AUGUST MEETING

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Roll Call Pledge of Allegiance Call for Public Comment * Approval of Minutes of the Previous Meeting Finance & Engineering Reports

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Resolutions Report of Executive Director Old Business New Business Adjournment

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*Notice of ten (10) days prior to date of regular meeting must be given to the Executive Director or the Chairman in order to address the Board.

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[GREEN LIGHT]

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CODE RED FOR GREENS {BY BILL Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;DRISCOLL} ON JAN. 9, at noon, about 75 climate activists

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gathered at the Station Square ofďŹ ce of U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey. They demanded that Toomey oppose nominees of Presidentelect Donald Trumpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, like climate-changedenying Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, nominated to head the EPA, and ExxonMobil chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson, the nominee for Secretary of State.

It was freezing out, and Toomey â&#x20AC;&#x201D; who himself denies the scientiďŹ c consensus that climate change is human-caused â&#x20AC;&#x201D; wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even there. So why bother? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Climate change is really the most important thing that we face,â&#x20AC;? said Dave Blair, a retired tech-ed teacher from Monaca, as two protesters were permitted inside to speak with Toomey staffers. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Long-term, I think this will sneak up and hurt our grandchildren especially. I consider this to be life or death for millions of people in the future.â&#x20AC;?

The protest, part of a national day of action, was organized by Pittsburgh 350 (the local incarnation of 350.org, an international climate-activism group). But itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just one way environmentalists are responding to Trump. Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s what some other local activists are advising: Face Facts. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve lost a really important election here,â&#x20AC;? say Larry Schweiger, a veteran environmentalist who heads PennFuture. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s gonna be bad.â&#x20AC;? Trump has vowed to roll back efforts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions; scrap a global climate agreement; â&#x20AC;&#x153;bring back coalâ&#x20AC;?; boost oil exploration and drilling; and revive projects like the climate-killing Keystone XL pipeline. Congressional Republicans want to sell off public lands. Adam Garber, ďŹ eld director of PennEnvironment, says heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s even heard talk of rewriting bedrock legislation like the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Give Up. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Caring in silence is not what this moment demands,â&#x20AC;? says Joylette Portlock, president of climate-change communications nonproďŹ t Communitopia.

Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t let headlines paralyze you. Rather, use them as a motivator, says Rachel Filippini, executive director of the Group Against Smog and Pollution. And remember, says Garber, most voters didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t vote to undermine basic environmental protections: â&#x20AC;&#x153;One thing we shouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t take away from the election is that people in Pennsylvania donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t care about clean air and clean water.â&#x20AC;?

Fight the Nominations. Environmental groups from 350 Pittsburgh to the Sierra Club have mobilized around opposing conďŹ rmation of the likes of Pruitt,

{CP PHOTO BY BILL Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;DRISCOLL}

Climate activists Kate Fissell and Jennifer McDowell met with representatives of U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey on Jan. 9.

Tillerson, Montana Congressman Ryan Zinke (for Secretary of Interior) and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (Energy). With such proindustry rulemakers, odds of even holding ground on climate and conservation dwindle. â&#x20AC;&#x153;When you have the head of Exxon running your country, you can see where thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going,â&#x20AC;? says Schweiger.

Make Calls. Activists agree that direct calls to elected ofďŹ cials are more effective than clicktivism, or even letter-writing.

Better still, learn your state and federal repsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; local ofďŹ ce hours and pay them a visit. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You can go down and sit and meet with them,â&#x20AC;? says Garber. â&#x20AC;&#x153;That has real power.â&#x20AC;?

Think Long-Term. The case for climate action goes back decades. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s really been an uphill battle,â&#x20AC;? says Portlock, recalling the George W. Bush years. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t end with one election. â&#x20AC;Ś We have to stay on task.â&#x20AC;?

Think Locally. Many environmental decisions, about everything from developing renewable energy to enforcing pollution laws, are made at the state and local level, where citizens can wield a lot of inďŹ&#x201A;uence. â&#x20AC;&#x153;If we canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t depend on the federal government to protect public health,â&#x20AC;? says Filippini, â&#x20AC;&#x153;then we have to look to our state and local ofďŹ cials to step in.â&#x20AC;?

Keep Informed. Join environmental groups whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll update you on protests and other actions. Sign up for state legislative alerts at www.legis.state.pa.us.

Build Community. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I think the most important thing people can do at this point is really connect,â&#x20AC;? says Portlock. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We need to be connecting with each other and making sure itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s clear that a majority of people do accept the science on climate change and do support climate action.â&#x20AC;? Pittsburgh 350 (www.world.350.org/pittsburgh) in particular is building its network to ďŹ ght during Trumpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ďŹ rst 100 days in ofďŹ ce.

As climate activist Blair puts it, â&#x20AC;&#x153;I plan to try to be at every event I can, because maybe it will make some difference.â&#x20AC;?

D RI S C OL L @ P G HC I T Y PA P E R. C OM

News of the Weird

S E N D YO U R W E IRD N E W S TO WE IR DNE WS@E A RTH L IN K. N E T O R W W W. N E W S O FTH E W E IRD. CO M

{BY CHUCK SHEPHERD}

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The salary the Golden State Warriors pay to basketball whiz Stephen Curry may be a bargain at $12 million a year, but the economics is weirder about the prices Curry’s fans pay on the street for one of his used mouthguards retrieved from the arena floor after a game. One used, sticky, saliva-encased teeth-protector went for $3,190 at one August auction, and SCP Auctions of California is predicting $25,000 for another, expelled during the NBA championship series last June. ESPN Magazine reported “at least” 35 Twitter accounts dedicated to Curry’s mouthguard.

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In parts of Panama, some men still fight for access to women with the ferocity of rutting male elks. The indigenous Ngabe people mostly keep to themselves in rural areas but have surfaced in towns like Volcan, near the Costa Rican border, where in December a reporter witnessed two men fist-fighting to bloody exhaustion on the street in a typical “Mi Lucha” (“my struggle”), with the loser’s wife following the winner home. As the custom loses its cachet, only about a third of the time does the wife now comply, according to the website Narratively. (Bonus: It’s an ofteneasy “divorce” for the Ngabe — for a fed-up wife to taunt her husband into a losing fight, or for a fed-up husband to pick a fight and take a dive.)

had was superseded exclusively by coverage under the state’s “workers’ compensation” system — a system largely designed for typical job injuries, such as back pain and slip-and-falls.

Thus, for example, one San Bernardino victim with “hundreds of pieces of shrapnel” still in her body even after multiple surgeries and in constant pain, must nevertheless constantly argue her level of care with a bureaucrat pressured by budgetary issues and forced to massage sets of one-size-fits-all guidelines.

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Vending Machine News: (1) Those awaiting trains in 35 stations in France now find kiosks dispensing short stories to pass the time. A wide range of selections (even poetry!), in suggested reading-time lengths of one, three and five minutes, can be printed out for free. (2) The only U.S. vending machine for champagne is now operational in the 23rdfloor lobby of the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Las Vegas. Moet and Chandon bubbly can be purchased with $20 tokens sold at the front desk.

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A December post on the Marietta, Ga., police department’s Facebook page chided a shoplifter still at large who had left his ID and fingerprints (and inadvertently posed for security cameras). The police, noting “how easy” the man had made their job, “begged” him to give them some sort of challenge: “Please at least try to hide.” Suspect Dale Tice was soon in custody.

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In January, tireless convicted fraudster Kevin Trudeau, who pitched magical remedies for countless ailments on late-night TV for almost 20 years (dodging investigations and lawsuits until the feds caught up with him in 2014), was turned down in what some legal experts believe might be his final judicial appeal.

Still, he never gives up. From his cell at a federal prison in Alabama, he continued to solicit funding for appeals via his Facebook fans, promising donors that they could “double” their money. Also, he said he would soon share “two secrets” that would allow donors to “vibrate frequencies ... to create the life [they] want.”

WAYNOVISION

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Over a six-year period (the latest measured), drug companies and pharmacies legally distributed 780 million pain pills in West Virginia — averaging 433 for every man, woman and child. Though rules require dispensers to investigate “suspicious” overprescribing, little was done, according to a recent Drug Enforcement Administration report obtained by the Gazette-Mail of Charleston — even though half of the pills were supplied by the nation’s “big three” drugmakers (whose CEOs’ compensation is enriched enormously by pain-pill production). Worse, year-by-year the strengths of the pills prescribed increase as users’ tolerance demands.

(West Virginia residents disproportionately suffer from unemployment, coal miningrelated disabilities and poor health.)

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University of Kentucky professor Buck Ryan disclosed in December that he had been punished recently (loss of travel funds and a “prestigious” award) by his dean for singing the Beach Boys classic “California Girls” for a lesson comparing American and Chinese cultures — because of the song’s “language of a sexual nature.” The school’s “coordinator” on sexual-harassment issues made the ruling, apparently absent student complaints, for Ryan’s lyric change of “Well, East Coast girls are hip” to “Well, Shanghai girls are hip.”

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Because the 2015 San Bernardino, Calif., terrorist attack that killed 14 and seriously wounded 22 was a “workplace” injury (in that the shooters fired only at fellow employees), any health insurance the victims

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{ILLUSTRATION BY RACHEL ARNOLD SAGER}

D ippy the Dinosaur doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t let the cold keep him from enjoying winter; he just puts a scarf on.

And so too should you add another layer or two and get out of the house. In the following pages, we list plenty of things to see and do, from plays and puppies to concerts and crazy dresses.

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ART

The Frick family enjoyed purchasing art. At the Frick Art & Historical Center, visitors can peruse The Frick Collects: From Rubens to Monet, an exhibit that traces the acquisition of various objects that today comprise the museum’s holdings — from decorative household items purchased by Henry Clay Frick to his descendants’ efforts to build a fine-art collection. Through May 14. Point Breeze. 412-371-0600 or www.thefrickpittsburgh.org

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1.855.206.4512 workwithus@acsouth.com

which showcases the Dutch designer’s otherworldly creations. Van Herpen’s unique sculptural dresses have been worn by such fashion-forward celebrities as Bjork and Lady Gaga. Feb. 4-May 1.

Carnegie Museum of Art, Oakland.

412-622-3131 or www.cmoa.org

Butterflies are among the most beautiful of insects, but how much do you know about their lives? The new interactive, maze-like Amazing Butterflies exhibition lets kids and adults explore what it’s like to be a butterfly, from climbing into pupa pods to crawling during the caterpillar stage. There’s even a butterfly zip line for “flying.” Jan. 21April 23. Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Oakland. 412-622-3131 or www.carnegiemnh.org

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The Silver Eye Center for Photography presents its annual competitive show. Fellowship 17 features the winning portfolios from Michigan’s Kris Sanford, whose series “Through the Lens of Desire” incorporates snapshots from the 1920s-1950s.

Also featured: Pittsburgher Francis Crisafio’s series “HOLDUP in the HOOD,” documenting an after-school photography program. Feb. 3-April 15.

Pittsburgh Filmmakers Galleries, Oakland. www.silvereye.org

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Is it fashion or is it art? And must we even choose? Ponder as you take in Iris van Herpen: Transforming Fashion,

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{PHOTO COURTESY OF BART OOMES, NO 6 STUDIOS}

Iris van Herpen’s “Radiation Invasion, Dress,” from Iris van Herpen: Transforming Fashion, at Carnegie Museum of Art

Doubt isn’t necessarily a bad thing: A lack of certainty means questions are asked, and that process can be illuminating. Six artists — Lenka Clayton, Lori Hepner, Mindy McDaniels, Gina Occhiogrosso, Diane Samuels and Mary Temple — tackle this concept in a new exhibit at SPACE. Doubt is curated by Nadine Wasserman. Feb. 10-March 26.

Downtown. 412-325-7723 or www.spacepittsburgh.org

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touring — or “declaring new live actions,” to quote the press release — with Montreal’s less minimal but similarly forceful Big Brave. March 13.

Rex Theater, South Side. 412-381-6811 or rextheater.com

Firelei Báez: Bloodlines, at The

Andy Warhol Museum, showcases the Dominican artist, whose works are inspired by lineages of black resistance in the U.S. and Caribbean. The drawings and paintings frequently incorporate textiles and body and hair ornaments, elements believed to hold personal or even spiritual power. Feb. 17May 21. North Side. 412-237-8300 or www.warhol.org Drawn from the collection of Roy R. Neuberger, When Modern Was Contemporary provides an illuminating progression of 20th-century “modern” masters. Ranging across decades and genres — from Georgia O’Keeffe and Alexander Calder to Ralston Crawford and Jackson Pollock — these 52 works represent a fertile and influential time in American art. Feb. 25-May 21.

Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Greensburg. 412-837-1500 or www.wmuseumaa.org

Legendary DJ and turntable wizard Kid Koala sets his sights on a human-robot love story with Nufonia Must Fall, an interdisciplinary performance piece combing music, puppets and film. It comes to Pittsburgh as a part of The Warhol’s Sound Series program. March 16. Carnegie Music Hall, Oakland. 412-622-3131 or carnegiemuseums.org

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MUSIC

Who better than Mogwai to score something as dramatic as Atomic: Living in Dread and Promise, the 2015 documentary exploring the horrors and strange beauty of the Atomic Age? The iconic, (mostly) instrumental outfit performs this ambitious score in full. Jan. 25. Carnegie Library of Homestead. Munhall. 412-462-3444 or librarymusichall.com

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If you missed the soulful singer Ms. Lauryn Hill, formerly of The Fugees, on her stop in town last year, here’s your second chance. Her new show, titled The MLH Caravan: A Diaspora Calling!, promises to “continue the theme of unity and celebration” from the 2016 shows. Jan. 31. Heinz Hall, Downtown. 412-392-4900 or www.pittsburghsymphony.org

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{PHOTO COURTESY OF CORINNE MERRELL}

Kid Koala, March 16

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Madness, expect to double the funky-

Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra

soul rhythms. Sure, Mardi Gras isn’t until Feb. 28, but no shame in getting ready early. Feb. 16. Stage AE, North Side.

412-229-5483 or www.stageae.com

strike by taking in a program of classical music. Manfred Honeck conducts the orchestra performing Tchaikovsky’s y. In The Sleeping Beauty. orite, addition to that favorite, attendees will hear Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony, Opus 25 (Symphony No. 1) and a percussion concerto, “Veni, Veni Emmanuel.”

Feb. 10-12. Heinz Hall, Downtown.

412-392-4900 or www.pittsburgh symphony.org

Thro Throwback to the Clinton era w with Cleveland rappe rappers Bone Thugs-nHarmony, who will hopefully bring hits like “Tha Crossroads.” The harmonizing crew sold more than 50 million records; you probably got a CD stashed somewhere, so show up for an old-school night out.

Feb. 26. Mr. Smalls Theatre, Millvale. 412-8214447 or www.mrsmalls.com

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{PHOTO COURTESY OF WILLIAM THOREN PHOTOGRAPHY}

George Clinton, Feb. 16 >

Just having George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic in the house pretty much guarantees a hipshaking, foot-stompin’ party. But when it flies under the banner of Mardi Gras

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JAN 31-FEB 5 BENEDUM CENTER

TRUSTARTS.ORG • BOX OFFICE AT THEATER SQUARE 412-456-4800 • GROUPS 10+ TICKETS 412-471-6930 PNC BROADWAY IN PITTSBURGH IS A PRESENTATION OF THE PITTSBURGH CULTURAL TRUST, PITTSBURGH SYMPHONY AND BROADWAY ACROSS AMERICA.

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Celebrate the settling of last year’s

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 01.18/01.25.2017

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sunn o))) has emerged as one of

the most influential (and loudest) bands in drone metal since it debuted in the late 1990s. This winter, the group is

She was a pop-country crossover sensation in the 1970s with hits like “Higher and Higher” and “We’re All Alone.” Catch up with Rita Coolidge, at Calliope’s 40th-anniversary fundraiser event and concert. March 18. Carnegie Lecture Hall, Oakland. 412-316-1915 or www.calliopehouse.org

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STAGE

Stage and film actor Michael Phillip Edwards plays multiple roles in I Am Not Sam, including that of Sam, an elderly black man, in this touring one-man show about identity and race.

Other characters include Sam’s son-inlaw, who is white, and his mixed-race grandson. Jan. 27 and 28. August Wilson Center, Downtown. 412-456-6666 or www.trustarts.org

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For Groundhog Day: Live Read, Arcade Comedy Theater assembles a roster of Pittsburgh actors and performers for a date-appropriate staged reading of the neo-classic 1993 film comedy about a weatherman stuck in a time loop in Punxsutawney. Feb. 2. Downtown. www.arcadecomedytheater.com

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NEW EWW YEA YEAR’S RESOLUTION RESOLUTIO UTION T TIO COME FLY! WITH US LOCATIONS IN BLOOMFIELD AND GREENTREE WE HOST PARTIES AERIAL SILKS AND CIRCUS CLASSES FOR AGES 5-ADULT

Pittsburgh Aerial Silks 412-681-0111 412 681 0111 011 PITTSBURGHAERIALSILKS.COM

{ILLUSTRATION BY RACHEL ARNOLD SAGER}

At the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater’s Alloy Studios, Pittsburgh’s DANA Movement Ensemble presents Take My Hand … I Am Here, a work-inprogress performance about loving and losing parents. Choreographer Nick Daniels’ inspirations included Butoh and contemporary dance.

Feb. 3. Friendship. 412-363-3000 or www.kelly-strayhorn.org

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In Shadowland, world-renowned contemporary dance troupe Pilobolus employs an unusual hybrid of dance and shadow theater to tell the by-turns scary and comedic story of a young girl’s fantasy world. The show comes courtesy of Pittsburgh Dance Council. Feb. 10 and 11. Downtown.

412-456-6666 or www.trustart.org

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In acclaimed composer Laura Kaminsky’s new opera, As One, a mezzo-soprano and a baritone portray a

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single transgender protagonist, named Hannah, on her emotionally fraught journey from childhood to adulthood.

Pittsburgh Opera has this chamber opera’s Pennsylvania premiere, starring Opera resident artists. Feb. 18-26.

Strip District. 412-281-0912 or www.pittsburghopera.org

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her manipulative, aging mother, and her new love interest. March 2-4.

August Wilson Center, Downtown.

412-456-6666 or www.trustarts.org A woman tries to keep looking on the bright side in the face of multiple family crises in Findings, a new play by local playwright Arlene Weiner. Lisa Ann Goldsmith directs the premiere production for Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Co. March 4-19. Downtown. www.pghplaywrights.com

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Craig Ferguson’s scheduled

Nov. 2 show at Carnegie Music Hall of Homestead was postponed, so now we can hear in person what the Scottishborn comic, memoirist and former The Late Late Show host thinks of not just the presidential campaign, but the election results, too. March 2. Munhall. www.librarymusichall.com

Catch the Pittsburgh premiere of Daddy Long Legs, John Caird and Paul Gordon’s 2009 musical about an adult orphan and her mysterious benefactor in turn-of-the-century New England. The two-character Cinderella story is staged by Pittsburgh Public Theater. March 9-April 9. Downtown.

412-316-1600 or www.ppt.org

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Ireland’s Druid Theatre presents the U.S. tour of Martin McDonagh’s Tony-winning 1996 dark comedy The Beauty Queen of Leenane, about a lonely fortysomething woman,

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{PHOTO COURTESY OF IAN DOUGLAS}

Pilobolus’ Shadowland, Feb. 10 and 11

City Theatre stages the Pittsburgh premiere of The Guard, a new play

by Jessica Dickey (The Amish Project), about a museum guard who begins “a time-bending journey” after he does the forbidden and touches one of the paintings he’s protecting. March 11April 2. South Side. 412-431-2489 or www.citytheatrecompany.org

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Peter and the Starcatcher,

Rick Elice’s 2009 play, and later a Tony-winning Broadway hit, is a grownup prequel to the Peter Pan stories, about an orphan boy and a “starcatcher-intraining.” The action- and musicfilled play is based on a novel by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, and Pitt Stages is the first regional troupe to stage it.

March 30-April 9. Oakland. 412-624-7529 or www.play.pitt.edu

LITERARY

The journalist and essayist Ta-Nehisi Coates won accolades including a National Book Award for his 2015 memoir Between the World and Me. Coates, a national correspondent

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for The Atlantic and one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People in 2016, visits the Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series for a free talk. March 20. Oakland. www. pittsburghwriterseries.wordpress.com Tell all about it at The Moth Story Slam, the monthly event at the Rex Theater in which audience members draw lots to tell short, true stories without notes on stage on a given theme.

Feb. 26, March 1.

South Side. www.themoth.org

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{PHOTO COURTESY OF JAY GRABIEC}

Author Roxanne Gay, March 6

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Roxanne Gay, the

critically acclaimed Haitian-American novelist (Untamed State), short-story writer (Ayiti) and essayist (Bad Feminist), visits Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures’ Monday Night Lectures behind publication of her latest collection, Difficult Women.

March 6. Oakland. 412-622-8866 or www.pittsbughlectures.org The widely published, widely anthologized author Peter Ho Davies was born in England and now lives in the U.S. His new novel, The Fortunes, comprises four linked stories

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ALCOSAN has created the Clean Water Assistance Fund to help low-income families and individuals pay their sewage bills. You can learn more about this program, including eligibility requirements and the application process, by attending one of two free public information meetings.

(Free shuttle service starting at 12:30 p.m. from the North Side T Station near PNC Park) {PHOTO COURTESY OF GERRY BENTON}

Pittsburgh Knit and Crochet Festival, March 24-26

reflecting on real historical figures in Chinese America. He gives a free reading at City of Asylum. Feb. 9. North Side.

412-323-0278 or www.alphabetcity.org

KIDS

Chinese performers. From beautiful costumes to seemingly impossible feats of flexibility and balance, this show is as much art as it is athletics. March 29. Palace Theatre, Greensburg. 724-836-8000 or www.thepalacetheatre.org

Can’t attend either meeting? Watch the 1:30 p.m. session via live streaming video.

(Visit www.alcosan.org prior to the 1:30 p.m. start time to access the video link.)

Pre-registration is encouraged but not required. To pre-register now, visit www.alcosan.org

Get healthier the fun (and footballish) way with NFL Play 60, a special one-day indoor training camp, held at the Heinz History Center. Get physical with a 40-yard dash, agility drills and footwork challenges. Feel like a winner? Then join the touchdown-dance competition.

Jan. 28. Strip District. 412-454-6000 or www.heinzhistorycenter.org

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You can be sure that the animals get up to all sorts of “drama” when left to their own devices. See what “plays” out in Jungle Book, a live-theater presentation held at Gemini Children’s Theater. Feb. 18-March 5.

Point Breeze. 412-243-6464 or www.geminitheater.org

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If it’s too cold to skate outdoors, settle back in the warm comfort of the PPG Paints Arena and watch your favorite Disney characters slice and twirl beautifully across the ice. Disney on Ice: Dream Big features an assortment of princesses, goofy Olaf and even the mermaid Ariel. Feb. 23-26. Uptown. www.ppgpaintsarena.com

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Folks of all ages will marvel at the Golden Dragon Acrobats, a long-running touring company of

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{PHOTO COURTESY OF HEINZ HISTORY CENTER}

NFL Play 60, Jan. 28

OUTDOORS Sure, it’s sunny in Miami, but that town can’t host an annual Ice Fest like Ligonier. Lots of frosty family fun, including the popular ice-carving demonstrations that turn giant blocks of frozen water into art.

Jan. 21-22. Diamond area, Ligonier. www.ligonier.com

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The whole family can get exercise with an ice-skating outing. Lace up and get going at any of these area rinks: MassMutual Pittsburgh Ice Rink at PPG Place, Downtown; Schenley Park Ice Rink, in Schenley Park; and rinks in the county’s North Park and South Park.

All locations offer skate rental.

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It’s Pittsburgh’s newest park and it keeps getting bigger. Winter is a great time to explore Emerald View Park, a series of trails that traverse the hillsides of Mount Washington, Duquesne Heights and Allentown. The trees are bare, and the views from the hilltop are spectacular. Get a trail guide at www.mwcdc.org/park.

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OTHER FUN EVENTS

You know who also needs cheering up in the gloomy winter months?

Cat, dogs and even bunnies at animal shelters. Take a dog for a walk; cuddle a cat; foster an animal; or do outreach to help pets find new homes. Check with area shelters to see what help they need. www.thinkingoutsidethecage.org or www.animalrescue.org

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{CP PHOTO BY JOHN HAMILTON}

Ice skating at Schenley Park Ice Rink

If it’s too cold to take a nature bath outside, head for the warmth and lush greenery of Phipps Conservatory.

The Orchid and Tropical Bonsai show

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is on now, and it’s a fun task to pick the most beautiful flower, or the most exquisite tiny tree. Schenley Park, Oakland. 412-622-6914 or www.phipps. conservatory.org Don’t get caught empty-handed this year. Join the Vintage Valentines Workshop, at the Ace Hotel, in conjunction with The Andy Warhol Museum. Say you care by borrowing art tricks from Andy Warhol, such as silkscreen and rubber stamps.

Feb. 12. Ace Hotel, East Liberty. www.warhol.org

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{PHOTO COURTESY OF PAUL G WEIGMAN}

Orchid and Tropical > Bonsai Show at Phipps Conservatory

Self-driving cars aren’t entirely a thing yet, so if you’re in the market to purchase one to drive yourself, stop by the Pittsburgh International Auto Show. All the latest models, showing off tech, torque and more.

Feb. 17-20. David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Downtown. www.pittautoshow.com

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In these darker, colder months, one’s thoughts turn to sustenance.

Celebrate (and taste) a variety of craft

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beers at the Pittsburgh Beer Fest (Feb. 24-25, www.pittsburghbeerfest. com). And note March 24-25, for the annual Farm to Table conference (www. farmtotablepa.com), which highlights local famers and food-purveyors.

Both events at David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Downtown

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If your instinct is to hunker down, at least do it in style. The annual

Pittsburgh Home and Garden Show at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center has acres of ideas — everything from eco-tips for your yard and improvements for your roof to luxury add-ons like walkin showers and deck extensions.

March 10-19.

Downtown. www.pghhome.com

The Pittsburgh Knit and Crochet Festival has now added the Creative Arts Festival, so there truly is something

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for everybody itching to make something. Exhibits, vendors, classes, meet-ups and so much, whether you’re a knitter, knotter, quilter, sewer or paper-folder, or just want to be.

March 24-26. David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Downtown. www.pghknitandcrochet.com •

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BEAT

“WE WANTED TO PARE DOWN AND GET BACK TO A MORE SIMPLE STYLE OF TOURING.”

{BY MIKE SHANLEY}

STRANGE TIMES “Sometimes the most absurd or ridiculous subjects can yield the deepest meanings,” says guitarist/vocalist Don Strange, of the local trio Strange Monsters. The perfect example comes in the opening track on their most recent CD, Destory All (no, that’s not a typo). “Optimus Minor” salutes all the underdogs of the world, using the would-be younger brother of Transformers leader Optimus Prime as an example.

“How would you feel if Optimus Prime was your older brother? You’d probably be pretty messed up, not from anything he did to you directly, but because of the way everyone treated you in reference to him,” Strange says. “If you use absurdity or dark humor effectively as a narrative device, it makes the listener consider things differently. Their mind has to approach the idea of the song from an unfamiliar angle.”

That might sound completely ridiculous if it weren’t so catchy. While Strange and drummer Tim Kelly bang out a power-chord riff, Maurice Bajcz adds extra dimension with some ominous synthesizers, evoking both prog rock and the incidental music that could be found in a Transformers movie scene. Five minutes after the song is over, the chorus is still stuck in your head. On other tracks, Bajcz switches to bass guitar, resulting in a leaner, classic trio approach. Strange churns out some sharp guitar leads, too.

The lyrics continue to use fictional characters as metaphors for daily living.

“On this album, the characters are always in crisis, whether it’s a crisis of identity or of expectations or just an inability to process all the information that gets thrown at them daily,” Strange says. “All three of us in the band have small children in our homes, so maybe it’s some sort of newfather complex. Maybe a good deal of this subject matter stems from the very real and important changes in our lives.”

Or maybe Strange Monsters, which released Destory All in the fall of 2016, sensed the impending doom that will coincide with their performance this Saturday.

INFO@PGHCITYPAPER.COM

STRANGE MONSTERS with Sun Hound 9:30 p.m. Sat., Jan. 21. Park House, 403 E. Ohio St., North Side. Free. 412-224-2273 NEWS

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{PHOTO COURTESY OF CONSTANCE MENSH}

Multifaceted: Steve Gunn

TWO GUNNS {BY BILL KOPP}

T

HOUGH THEY came to prominence

in different eras, guitarists Steve Gunn and Lee Ranaldo have a shared musical sensibility. As co-founder of Sonic Youth, Ranaldo helped pioneer the mainstreaming of the 1970s New York-based “no wave” movement into popular musical culture. With one foot in the acoustic scene and another firmly planted in the electric-guitar-hero camp, Gunn is breaking new musical ground in the 21st century. The two guitarists have teamed up for a tour that will bring them to Pittsburgh’s Andy Warhol Museum on Jan. 19.

“We both live in New York, and of course I’m a huge fan of [Randaldo],” Gunn tells CP by phone. Some time ago, they did a one-off show together “and we were chatting about how fun it would be

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to do a tour because we had both been on the road quite a bit these past few years.”

Both guitarists were interested in the opportunity to “pare down and get back to a more simple style of touring, bringing minimal gear but still playing all our songs,” Gunn says.

STEVE GUNN AND LEE RANALDO WITH MEG BAIRD

8 p.m. Thu., Jan. 19. The Andy Warhol Museum, 117 Sandusky St., North Side. $12-15. 412-237-8300 or www.warhol.org

The stripped-down musical setting will allow the two guitarists to explore the possibilities of the acoustic guitar — both individually and together — outside

the context of a full band. Gunn says that his set will focus on song-based material, but says that he and Ranaldo “definitely want to try to do some things that are more improvisational.”

Beyond that, Gunn sees the tour as a way for the duo to “exchange ideas for collaborative opportunities.” After a full-band tour in support of Eyes on the Lines, his 14th and latest album, Gunn was ready to get back to playing solo, and says that “finally we both came to a point where it was a good time to do it.”

Though his music is often very accessible, Gunn comes from an improvisational background. He often mentions minimalist composer La Monte Young as an influence. Even within the context of the more pop-oriented material on Eyes on the Lines, Gunn’s interest in minimalist CONTINUES ON PG. 20

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values like repetition comes through.

Gunn says he values Young’s ideas about “deep listening and appreciating Indian classical music and chromatic music.” He notes that repetition — particularly with percussion instruments — “can be healing and meditative, and can incorporate itself into all different kinds of things.”

Musical collaboration is nothing new for Gunn. In the last decade, he’s recorded or performed with Hiss Golden Messenger, Kurt Vile and the Violators, The Black Twig Pickers, and Mike Cooper.

All but the last of those are artists with whom Gunn had had a prior musical introduction. “I was familiar with Mike’s music, but I had never played with him before we recorded Cantos de Lisboa,” Gunn says.

“That was an interesting experience,” he recalls. “I had all these plans that were completely wiped out off the page once I actually ended up sitting down with Mike. He was like, ‘I don’t think I want to do any of that; let’s just play.’” Gunn says that freewheeling approach kept him on his toes: “Mike Cooper’s playing pulled things out of me that I don’t necessarily think I could have even thought of otherwise.”

That spirit of being open to the unexpected when making music is something Gunn values and something he hopes to cultivate when he shares the stage with Ranaldo. “I’m lucky enough to play with people who are acute listeners,” he says.

“They really understand my weird sort of playing style, and can complement it really well, so it’s really fun to play with them.”

The January tour with Ranaldo is currently limited to about a dozen dates in the eastern U.S. and Canada. “I think that, for now, it’s a finite thing,” Gunn says. But he does hold out the possibility of more dates in the future. “Lee and I are going to look at our schedules for the year,” he says. “I think it would be cool if we could try to do more at some point.”

But immediately after the current tour, the always busy Gunn will be on to his next project: beginning the process of making another record. “And I’m going to take my time with it,” he says. “These past two years have been non-stop, so I’m really looking forward to working on songs and getting good demos together.”

Gunn’s enduring collaborative spirit means that he’ll do more one-on-one projects, too. “I’ll be getting back into that a little bit this next year, and I’m really looking forward to that, too,” he says.

“So it will be a shift; it won’t be a full push with a band and a van full of gear driving all over the world.”

INF O @PGH C IT YPAPE R . C O M

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 01.18/01.25.2017

NEW RELEASES

THE SILVER THREAD STRANGE CURRENTS (PSYCHODAISY RECORDS) THESILVERTHREAD.BANDCAMP.COM

The pop rock of the 1960s and 1990s looms large over the eight songs on Strange Currents. Hints of Pearl Jam and Sonic Youth work side by side with the early psychedelia of Steppenwolf and the pre-punk of the Kinks. It’s not a revelatory combination, but this trio’s skillful instrumentation makes it work.

Check out “Valentine on Fire” for a great example of that dichotomy.

BY ALEX GORDON

BILL DEASY TIMELESS THINGS (VINTAGE RECORDS) WWW.BILLDEASY.COM

When Bill Deasy started writing his eighth full-length, he says, in a press release, “I didn’t even know [I wanted] to do a new project.” That the songs on this collection of polished folk rock flowed so easily probably explains the natural pacing and poise of this record, which features guest spots by Maia Sharp and Scott Blasey. There’s a vibrancy and grit to some of Deasy’s lyrics that I wish were better reflected in the sound (he gets close on tracks like “Blood Red Moon”), but fans will find plenty to enjoy.

BY MARGARET WELSH

T-TOPS FACE OF DEPRESSION (SELF-RELEASED) T-TOPS.BANDCAMP.COM

If you need a soundtrack for the moment your feeble New Years optimism expires, grab this 7-inch. The sludgy punk trio is good at extracting bleakness from the mundane: “My most productive day was spent lying around the house / inventing new and disgusting ways of stuffing my mouth,” frontman Patrick Waters snarls in “Dead Magician.”

It’s dark, sure, but it’s delivered in a noisy, heavy rock ’n’ roll package, which goes down real easy.

BY MARGARET WELSH

TRAX FARMS WINTER BEER

FESTIVAL JANUARY 28 TH Noon-4pm

BREWS, LIVE MUSIC, GREAT FOOD & MUCH MORE! PURCHASE TICKETS ONLINE OR CALLING 412-835-3246

528 TRAX ROAD FINLEYVILLE, PA 15332 NEWS

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TICKETS ON SALE NOW!

ADVANCE TICKETS:$15 DAY OF TICKETS:$20

www.traxfarms.com

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diesel C LU B | LO U N G E

UPCOMING CONCERTS

PYRAMID

CRITICS’ PICKS

TATTOO & Body Piercing

Alcest

1/20| 7:00 PM | AA

of F LYL E A F

2/ 14| 7:00 PM | AA

PYRAMIDTATTOO.COM Bridgeville, Pa [POP-PUNK] + THU., JAN. 19

2/ 1 6 | 8:00 P M | 18+

2/ 18 1 8 | 7:00 7 00 PM P M | AA

2/21 | 7:00 PM | AA

2/22 | 8:00 | 21+

LET ’S GET S CIAL

2/23 | 8:00 PM | AA

Mr. Roboto Project plays host to the Frigid Friends Tour, featuring several groups ranging from melodic emo to heavier and more straightforward pop-punk. Bad Case of Big Mouth is a trio from New Jersey that infuses pop and metal with uptempo rock percussion.

Portland, Me.’s Friday Night Lites is passionate and upbeat, thanks to the strength of singer Joey Genovese’s rugged vocals. Repping the ’Burgh is Life Is Short, which pairs light harmonies and confrontational lyrics with a theatrical live show. Saybrook, of Greensburg, is emotive and high-energy, reminiscent of the early-2000s outfit Bear vs. Shark. Lastly, Ixora, the only female-led band in the lineup, combines clear-cut vocals with gritty guitar riffs and melancholy lyrics. Alona Williams 7 p.m. 5106 Penn Ave., Bloomfield. $5. www. therobotoproject.com

[JAZZ HOP] + JAN. 19-21 2/24 | 8:00 P M | 21+

3/8 | 7:00 | AA

3/21| 7:00 PM | AA

3/23 | 8:00 | AA

for tickets visit LIVEATDIESEL.COM or Dave’s Music Mine (southside)

)ROORZ XV WR ƓQG RXW ZKDWōV KDSSHQLQJ @PGHCITYPAPER FACEBOOK.COM/ PITTSBURGHCITYPAPER

1801 e. carson st | pittsburgh |412.481.8800

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 01.18/01.25.2017

Chachacha Oyamba, was an ode to his childhood growing up in Zambia during its struggle for independence. He has collaborated in the past with local acts such as Colt Harper and Preach Freedom, while working to promote the world-music scene in Pittsburgh. He performs tonight at the First Unitarian Church. AW 7:30 p.m.

605 Morewood Ave., Shadyside. $10-15.

412-621-8008 or www.first-unitarian-pgh.org

[BLACK METAL] + SUN., JAN. 22 If you’re into melodic shoegaze but prefer not to understand the lyrics, Alcest is for you, assuming you don’t speak French. Since debuting in 2000, the Bagnois-sur-Ceze, Francebased outfit has upped its output with four releases in the past seven years. The latest is Kodoma, a simple yet heavy symphonic album. Instrumentation carries this band; although its sound has gone through evolutions, its foundation is “raw black metal” and that has not been lost in its latest release.

AW 7:30 p.m. Rex Theater, 1602 E. Carson St., South Side. $13.5020. 412-381-6811

Local artists are coming together for three nights of fine dining and live performances at The Mesh, a threeday collaborative event Anqwenique at Spork. On Jan. 19, [INTERACTIVE ART] The Uptown Woods Wingfield + WED., JAN. 25 will offer their distinct After a threesound, combining year hiatus, #BACHelements of smooth BOOMBOX is back! (Try saying that 10 times jazz and hip hop. Day two includes an open fast.) The interactive performance explores mic for poets, MCs and musicians of all kinds — the relationship between hip hop and classical sign-up is at 9 p.m. that night, or via email at music, with special guests including the versatile levelupdancpgh@gmail.com. The last night songstress Anqwenique Wingfield, Human DJ, offers a dance party, with DJ Adis spinning cellist Rachel Smith and spoken-word artist Joy the tunes, plus a late-night menu and a happy KMT. The best part: It’s interactive! Audience hour from midnight to 2 a.m. AW 10 p.m., engagement is key to exploring the cultural 5430 Penn Ave., Friendship. $5 per night. relationship between two seemingly disparate levelupdancpgh@gmail.com genres. The event, at Boom Concepts, is hosted by the Magic Organs, D.S. Kinsel and Julie [ZAMBIAN REGGAE] + SAT., JAN. 21 Mallis. How fun would it be to do ballet to Mathew Tembo is a unique instrumentalist Public Enemy? Or twerk to Bach? You never who fuses indigenous styles with contemporary know. AW 7 p.m. 5139 Penn Ave., Garfield. reggae. A multilingual lyricist who builds Pay-what-you-wish. www.boomconcepts.com his own instruments, Tembo’s last album,

Clicking “reload” makes the workday blogh.pghcitypaper.com go faster

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} PALACE THEATRE. Get the Led Out. Greensburg.

724-836-8000.

ROCK/POP THU 19 ANDY WARHOL MUSEUM. Lee Ranaldo & Steve Gunn.

North Side. 412.237.8300.

CLUB CAFE. Susto w/ Heyrocco, Wine & Spirit. South Side.

412-431-4950.

FRI 20 CLUB CAFE. Joe Zelek Band w/ Secret Devil Tuning Employees of Funk. South Side.

412-431-4950.

DIESEL. J.T. Woodruff of Hawthorne Heights, In Her Own Words, Woven In Hiatus, Hazing. South Side.

412-431-8800.

GOOD TIME BAR. The GRID. Millvale. 412-821-9968.

HOWLERS. Nuggetsfest 2.

Bloomfield. 412-682-0320.

MOONDOG’S. Nied’s Hotel Band. Blawnox. 412-828-2040.

MR. SMALLS THEATER. Surf Bored, What’s Missing, Hear Tonight, Zeve, The Incandescents. Millvale.

412-821-4447.

KENDREW’S. The GRID. Moon. 724-375-5959.

MOONDOG’S. Bill Toms & Hard Rain w/ the Soulful Horns. Blawnox.

412-828-2040.

BAJA BAR AND GRILL. MR. SMALLS THEATER. Told Ya So Band. Fox Chapel.

‘Thanks, Obama!’: A Farewell 412-963-0640.

Show ft. Lyndsey Smith BALTIMORE HOUSE. & Soul Distribution, Up Passed 10. Pleasant Byron Nash & Plan B, Hills. 412-653-9332.

The Big Bend w/ CLUB CAFE. Cisco Kid. Millvale.

Nathan King O’Hara 412-821-4447. w/ Tioga, Johnny PALACE Wall. South Side. . www per THEATRE. Get 412-431-4950. a p ty ci pgh m the Led Out. DAVID LAWRENCE .co Greensburg.

CONVENTION CENTER. 724-836-8000.

Totally 80s. Pittsburgh’s SMILING MOOSE. Women “Wine & Whiskey” Suburban Samurai, Latecomer, WinterFest 2017. Downtown.

Danvers, Smile my Dear.

412-405-9721.

South Side. 412-431-4668.

DOWNEY’S HOUSE. The Gumband. Robinson.

412-489-5631.

DIESEL. Youth In Revolt.

HOWLERS. A.T.S., Amoeba Plus Nullity & a special guest.

Knieval & Knauer Bros.

South Side. 412-431-8800.

Bloomfield. 412-682-0320.

MR. SMALLS THEATER. JERGEL’S RHYTHM GRILLE. Dean Ween Group w/ Totally 80s. Warrendale.

The Mike Dillon Band. Millvale.

724-799-8333.

412-821-4447.

SAT 21

FULL LIST ONLINE

SUN 22

THE R BAR. Billy The Kid & the Regulators. Dormont.

412-942-0882.

MP 3 MONDAY

WED 25 ELWOOD’S PUB. Soul Circle. Rural Ridge.

724-265-1181.

GOOSKI’S. Coach n’ Commando, the Spectres, Spellcaster.

Polish Hill. 412-681-1658.

ANCIENT HISTORY

DJS THU 19 BELVEDERE’S. Y2K Time to Pretend. Lawrenceville.

412-687-2555.

MR. SMALLS THEATER. Centrifuge Thursdays.

At the Funhouse. Millvale.

412-821-4447.

PERLE CHAMPAGNE BAR. Bobby D Bachata. Downtown.

412-471-2058.

FRI 20 ANDYS WINE BAR. DJ Malls Spins Vinyl. Downtown.

412-773-8884.

THE FLATS ON CARSON. Pete Butta. South Side.

412-586-7644.

ONE 10 LOUNGE. DJ Goodnight, DJ Rojo.

Downtown. 412-874-4582.

THE R BAR. KAR-E-O-KEE. Dormont. 412-942-0882.

RIVERS CASINO. VDJ Millz.

North Side. 412-231-7777.

Each week, we bring you a new song from a local artist. This week’s track comes from Ancient History, a rich and spacey guitar project from Donald Ducote.

Stream or download “Pico and Grand,” from his recently released Good Friend Electrical, at FFW>>, the music blog at www.pghcitypaper.com.

CONTINUES ON PG. 24

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CONCERTS, CONTINUED FROM PG. 23

SAT 21 BELVEDERE’S. ADMC Sean MC & Thermos. 90s night.

Lawrenceville. 412-687-2555.

BRILLOBOX. Pandemic: Global Dancehall, Cumbia, Bhangra, Balkan Bass.

Bloomfield. 412-621-4900.

DIESEL. DJ CK. South Side.

412-431-8800.

REMEDY. Push It! DJ Huck Finn, DJ Kelly Fasterchild. Lawrenceville.

412-781-6771.

ROWDY BUCK. Top 40 Dance.

South Side. 412-431-2825.

TUE 24 THE GOLDMARK. Pete Butta. Reggae & dancehall.

Lawrenceville. 412-688-8820.

WED 25 BELVEDERE’S. DJ Jordan Weeks. Lawrenceville.

412-687-2555.

THE GOLDMARK. Pete Butta & Preslav. Top Dollar Dancehall. Lawrenceville.

(412-688-8820.

SMILING MOOSE. Rock Star Karaoke w/ T-MONEY. South Side. 412-431-4668.

SPOON. Spoon Fed. East Liberty.

412-362-6001.

EARLY WARNINGS

BLUES FRI 20 NIED’S HOTEL. Jack of Diamonds.

Lawrenceville. 412-781-9853.

SAT 21 GETAWAY CAFE. The Witchdoctors. Brookline.

412-343-1333.

THE R BAR. Jimmi Adler.

Dormont. 412-942-0882.

WED 25 MOONDOG’S. Tommy Z Band.

Blawnox. 412-828-2040.

THU 19 JAMES STREET GASTROPUB & SPEAKEASY. Roger Humphries Jam Session. Ballroom. North Side.

412-904-3335.

VALLOZZI’S PITTSBURGH. Eric Johnson. Downtown.

412-394-3400.

THE WESTMORELAND MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART. Westmoreland Jazz Society Concert ft. Eric Barchiesi. Greensburg.

724-837-1500.

[MON., MARCH 06]

Los Campesinos!

Rex Theater, 1602 E. Carson St., South Side [SAT., MARCH 25]

Green Day Petersen Event Center, 3719 Terrace St., Oakland

FRI 20

[SAT., MAY 06]

ANDORA RESTAURANT - FOX CHAPEL. Pianist Harry Cardillo & vocalist Charlie Sanders. Fox Chapel. 412-967-1900.

AUGUST WILSON CENTER FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURAL CENTER. Jarrod Lawson. Downtown.

412-471-6070.

GRILLE ON SEVENTH. Tony Campbell & Howie Alexander.

Downtown. 412-391-1004.

1810 TAVERN. RML Jazz.

Bridgewater. 412-370-9621.

JAMES STREET GASTROPUB & SPEAKEASY. Tony Campbell Saturday Afternoon Jazz Session.

North Side. 412-904-3335.

THE MONROEVILLE RACQUET CLUB. Jazz Bean Live.

Every Saturday, a different band.

Monroeville. 412-728-4155.

SUN 22 ROCKS LANDING BAR & GRILLE. Tony Campbell & the Jazz Surgery. McKees Rocks.

412 - 857- 5809.

Loudon Wainwright III Carnegie of Homestead Music Hall, 510 E. 10th St., Munhall

MJ’S STEEL CITY. Eclectic Acoustics. Robinson. 724-227-3051.

REGGAE

FRI 20

THU 19

ELWOOD’S PUB. Jeff Pogas.

Rural Ridge. 724-265-1181.

THE SOUTH SIDE BBQ RESTAURANT. Tony Germaine, singer/guitarist. South Side.

412-381-4566.

FRI 20

SAT 21 DOUBLE WIDE GRILL. Right TurnClyde. North Huntingdon.

724-863-8181.

RIVERS CASINO. Justin Fabus Acoustic. North Side.

412-231-7777.

THE HARDWOOD CAFE. Eclectic Acoustics.

Butler. 724-586-5335.

FULL LIST E N O LwIN w.

w paper pghcitym .co

MON 23 HAMBONE’S. Ian Kane, Ronnie Weiss & Tom Boyce.

Jazz Standards, showtunes & blues.

Lawrenceville. 412-681-4318.

WED 25 RIVERS CLUB. Jessica Lee & Friends. Downtown. 412-391-5227.

ACOUSTIC THU 19 DOWNEY’S HOUSE. Jay Wiley.

Robinson. 412-489-5631.

ELWOOD’S PUB. The Fidlers.

Rural Ridge. 724-265-1181.

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 01.18/01.25.2017

Green Day

JAZZ

SAT 21

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{PHOTO COURTESY OF FRANK MADDOCKS}

ROWDY BUCK. Top 40 Dance.

South Side. 412-431-2825.

RUGGER’S PUB. 80s Night w/ DJ Connor. South Side.

412-381-1330.

TUE 24

ACOUSTIC MUSIC WORKS. The Matchsellers, Devon Niall Flaherty.

Squirrel Hill. 412-422-0710.

WED 25 ALLEGHENY ELKS LODGE #339. Pittsburgh Banjo Club.

Wednesdays. North Side.

412-321-1834.

PARK HOUSE. Shelf Life String Band. North Side. 412-224-2273.

WORLD SAT 21 FIRST UNITARIAN CHURCH. Mathew Tembo. Shadyside.

412-621-8008.

PIRATA. The Flow Band.

Downtown. 412-323-3000.

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

412-362-1250.

JAMES STREET GASTROPUB & SPEAKEASY. The Flow Band Reggae Rockers. North Side.

412-904-3335.

OTHER MUSIC THU 19 LINDEN GROVE. Karaoke. Castle Shannon.

412-882-8687.

RIVERS CASINO. Rebecca Kaufman & the Groove Doctors.

North Side. 412-231-7777.

FRI 20 LINDEN GROVE. No Bad JuJu. Castle Shannon.

412-882-8687.

RIVERS CASINO. Hewlett Anderson Duo. North Side. 412-231-7777.

SAT 21 BAJA BAR AND GRILL. Dancing Queen Band.

Fox Chapel. 412-963-0640.

RIVERS CASINO. Jeff Jimerson & Airborne. North Side.

412-231-7777.

PAID ADVERTORIAL SPONSORED BY

What to do IN PITTSBURGH

18 - 24

WEDNESDAY 18 Deerhunter

MR. SMALLS THEATRE Millvale. 412-821-4447.

With special guest Palm.

All ages show. Tickets: ticketweb.com/opusone. 8p.m.

THURSDAY 19 Susto & I’m Fine Today Tour

CLUB CAFE South Side.

412-431-4950.

With special guests Heyrocco & Wine and Spirit. Over 21 show. Tickets: ticketweb.com/ opusone. 8p.m.

FRIDAY 20 205 21+ Glow Night

CARNEGIE SCIENCE CENTER North Side. Over 21 event.

Tickets: carnegiesciencecenter. org. 6p.m.

My Perfect Body: James Elkins Lecture ANDY WARHOL MUSEUM North Side. Free lecture.

For more info visit warhol. org. 7p.m.

NEWS

MR. SMALLS THEATRE Millvale. 412-821-4447.

With special guests What’s Missing, Hear Tonight, Zeve, & The Incandescents. All ages show. Tickets: ticketweb.com/ opusone. 7p.m.

Team Rowland REX THEATER South Side.

412-381-6811. All ages show.

Tickets: ticketfly.com or 1-877-4-FLY-TIX. 7:30p.m.

412 38 412-381-6811.

412 3811 68 68111 With spe special guests The Body & Creepers.

All ages show. Tickets: ticketfly.com or 1-877-4-FLY-TIX. 8:25p.m.

HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY RY INCH BENEDUM CENTER JAN 24-25

Surf Board

MONDAY 23

PHOTO BY JOAN MARCUS

Jan

Daniel Bachman

CLUB CAFE South Side.

412-431-4950. With special guest Lukas Read. Over 21 show. Tickets: ticketweb.com/ opusone. 8p.m.

Truckfighters

Bruce in the USA JERGEL’S RHYTHM GRILLE Warrendale. 724-799-8333.

Over 21 show.

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

SATURDAY 21

Gallery Crawl

The Royale

MULTIPLE LOCATIONS Cultural District. Free event.

For more info visit trustarts. org. 5:30p.m.

CITY THEATER MAINSTAGE South Side. 412-431-2489.

Tickets: citytheatercompany. org. Through Feb. 12.

Jarrod Lawson

M A I N F E AT U R E

Bodiography Red Carpet Rollout Performance

“Thanks, Obama!”

A Farewell Show

AUGUST WILSON CENTER Downtown. 412-456-6666.

Tickets: trustarts.org. 9p.m.

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With special guests Lyndsey Smith & Soul Distribution, Byron Nash & Plan B, The Big Bend, & Cisco Kid. Tickets: ticketweb.com/opusone. 8p.m.

BYHAM THEATER Downtown. 412-456-6666.

Tickets: pgharts.org. 8p.m.

MR SMALLS THEATRE Millvale. 412-821-4447.

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CATTIVO Lawrenceville.

412-687-2157. With special guests King Destroy & Horehound. Over 21 show.

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

SUNDAY 22 Dean Ween Group

TUESDAY 24

MR. SMALLS THEATRE Millvale. 412-821-4447.

With special guest Mike Dillon. All ages show.

Tickets: ticketweb.com/ opusone. 8p.m.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

BENEDUM CENTER Downtown. 412-456-6666.

Tickets: trustarts.org or 412-456-4800.

Through Jan. 25.

Alcest REX THEATER South Side.

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[BOOK REVIEW]

CONFESSIONS

TWICE-FORSAKEN GLASS MARBLES AND SHATTERED TEACUPS AND SAUCERS LITTER THE SAND

{BY FRED SHAW} In a 1994 interview with The Paris Review, Pulitzer Prize-winner and Wilkinsburg native W.D. Snodgrass stated that confessionalism remains “a journalistic tag, not very accurate. It sounds either like you’re some kind of religious poet, which I am not, or as if you write bedroom memoirs. … [M]y poems were called confessional because I wrote about the facts of my own life.” By this estimation, much creative writing, including local poet Jennifer Jackson Berry’s debut full-length collection, The Feeder (YesYes Books), might be labeled this way as well.

Berry, who lives in Pittsburgh, is editor-in-chief of Pittsburgh Poetry Review and assistant editor of WomanArts Quarterly Journal. She is the author of the chapbooks When I Was a Girl and Nothing But Candy, and much work in The Feeder’s 89 pages has been featured there and in a slew of lit mags. It’s welcome exposure for a poet whose strongest poems focus on the physical, sometimes through eating and sex, but always in a voice powerful and genuine.

In “I Did Things for the Stories,” Berry utilizes a speaker unafraid to laugh or cry about herself, writing, “My advice: eat things mayo-based, hot / from the sun. When you puke, / puke in the port-a-potty, / bare knees & hair loose. / At the pavilion after, / take another spoonful. / But don’t swat the wasp. / Let it happen. Let the sting happen.”

Youthful indiscretion here morphs into the sweet reality of cohabitation’s bliss before the poem ends with, “we eat what’s gone / bad together, / the dead, the dying / the never-born.” Caesura here adds power to clipped lines.

Indeed, the last phrase points to another theme of The Feeder: infertility and miscarriage. These themes are best reflected in “What Not to Do,” when the speaker plainly says, “Don’t text me pictures of your kids. / Don’t ask me when we’ll try again. / Don’t tell me to use this as a springboard for weight loss.”

The list-y nature of the requests frame painful imagery of “clots & tissue.” It’s an emotional series that’ll leave readers thinking of times they were at a loss to say the right thing, reminding this reader of Catherine Tufariello’s equally powerful poem “Useful Advice.”

While some of its poems seem strangely fetishistic, The Feeder, as a collection, remains hauntingly honest, speaking truths to what it means to be alive in bodies we don’t get to choose.

Photo of an abandoned home by Palestinian artist Bashar Alhroub

[ART REVIEW]

NO DIRECTION HOME {BY BILL O’DRISCOLL}

“A

human attitude toward other humans, or human creations: No one laments an abandoned forest or an abandoned desert. The Domesticity of Abandonment, a group show at SPACE gallery, explores both abandoned artifacts and abandoned people.

Carolina Loyola-Garcia, guest-curating for SPACE, says the theme is how abandonment, defined broadly, affects people’s everyday lives. Among the 15 participating artists, who range from locally to internationally based, two chose strikingly similar artifacts. For “516 Sampsonia Way,” Pittsburgh’s Rose Clancy scavenged a vacant North Side lot, then created, from scrap wood, a cabinet; rotate its crude wooden peg to turn

INFO@PGHCITYPAPER.COM

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BANDONMENT” describes a

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 01.18/01.25.2017

a belt inside adorned with finds like keys, and plastic detritus from toys to novelty items — literal trash that might or might not have meant something to someone, at some time, but whose abandonment

THE DOMESTICITY OF ABANDONMENT continues through Jan. 29. SPACE, 812 Liberty Ave., Downtown. 412-325-7723 or www.spacepittsburgh.org

makes it somehow poignant all the same.

A metaphorical cabinet, Cyprus-based Aysu Arsoy’s “The Cabinet of Lost Memories,” showcases artifacts once owned by residents of a town in that former British colony that was looted during the 1974

Turkish invasion. The town was abandoned — just as the objects themselves later were by the looters. The twiceforsaken glass marbles, toy cars, rubber duck, and shattered teacups and saucers litter the sand in two installations and 21 photos.

Yet it’s more wrenching still to see whole houses discarded, as in Palestinian artist Bashar Alhroub’s two dozen photos of homes fled for economic or political reasons over decades of expulsions, displacements and other upheavals. The myriad of household goods left behind in those buildings echoes Dragana Crnjak’s “Home,” a starkly powerful wall drawing of a dining room table, its chairs scattered, two on their sides; Crnjak fled Bosnia in 1997, during civil war, and

writes that the “image of an abandoned dining room haunts my mind.” Alhroub also contributes “Gateway to Heaven,” a desperate and despairing short video in which a point-of-view camera frantically winds through seemingly endless alleyways to dramatize the plight of stateless refugees, Palestinians who pine for an increasingly mythical homeland from which earlier generations were expelled.

Alhroub’s abandoned houses are more or less intact. Not so the structures in Susanne Slavick’s series of five appropriated photos of bomb-broken buildings in places like Iraq and Lebanon. Slavick amends the photos with images taken from traditional Muslim art — animals, architectural details — and superimposed to recall the history and culture of these shattered places.

The West has its own brand of abandoned buildings. “Belshazzar’s Feast,” a photo installation by Deborah Hoskings, highlights graffiti on such structures in Pittsburgh (the title references the Old Testament’s prophesying “writing on the wall” story). But other subject matter also connects, such as the wrought-iron lawn furniture that sits in an overgrown yard as if still awaiting its tea party. Stephen Grebinski’s installations “Arena One” and “Arena Two” document a former homeaway-from-home for some of Pittsburgh’s gay community: Uptown’s now-demolished Arena Health Club, a bathhouse Grebinski memorialized with architectural artifacts and video loops of salvaged VHS footage (depicting scenes including a beefcake photo shoot).

Then there are homes abandoned before they were even lived in. Christine Holtz’s “Ard an Oir” series documents one of the more than 2,000 housing developments left uncompleted in Ireland after the 2008 global financial crisis. The ironic residue of a burst housing bubble includes a colorful “Showhouse Now Open” poster for this “exclusive development.”

On the hopeful side is “A Quiet Declaration,” Joey Behrens’ photo documentation of his project to artfully reclaim an abandoned space next to his own Wilkinsburg home.

Our feelings toward abandoned objects or buildings might be as strong as anger or, depending on circumstances, as mild as a certain wistfulness. But what happens when places (or institutions) abandon their people? Right in our backyard, Nicholas Childers’ ongoing project Steel in Distress sounds out laborers like

Photo from Aysu Arsoy’s “The Cabinet of Lost Memories”

the United Steelworkers members who for six months were locked out by Allegheny Technologies Inc., which sought contract concessions including reduced health benefits. In photos and a short video, Childers bears witness to these workers displaced in place — including the makeshift shelters they built outside ATI factories.

The international refugee crisis is one of the world’s biggest news stories and political issues. As noted in text for Andrew Ellis Johnson and Susanne Slavick’s “Resort,” nearly 4,000 refugees died last year attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea; their video loop succinctly demarcates the gulf between those who view bodies of water as sites of leisure and those who must navigate them to survive.

Refugees in similar straits get faces and names in “Echoless Refuge.” Algerian journalist Oualid Khelifi contributes 27 striking, even iconic black-and-white photos of a few of the millions of Africans who, with little media attention, have been displaced by warfare and other strife from places like the Central African Republic, Djibouti and Somalia. Khelifi notes that despite the howls of nativists the world over, the vast majority of refugees end up not in the West, but in the developing world — people like Hosna, a Sudanese woman who attends school with her daughter as a refugee in Chad, and Adam, a farmer who fled his native

THEN THERE ARE HOMES ABANDONED BEFORE THEY WERE EVEN LIVED IN.

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Darfur for Chad a decade ago, and whom Khelifi makes resemble a figure out of an Eisenstein film.

Abandonment can lead to sanctuary.

Cigden Slankard’s three-channel video “Cultivation” finds Somali-Bantu, Bhutanese, Burundi and Congolese refugees living in rural New Hampshire, resettled as part of the New American Sustainable Agriculture Project. The scenes range from stark winter landscapes to the high green of summer, from seed to farmers’ market, and from the refugees’ talk of war and repression to one woman saying, of farming, “It’s almost like you are doing an exchange of the soil with you.”

Immigrants (not necessarily refugees)

are also recognized in “Immigrant Body in Translation.” Maritza Mosquera’s interview project about people coming to and leaving the U.S. includes big quiltlike grids of silk-screened photo portraits.

Still, two of this exhibit’s more intriguing works don’t explicitly concern abandoned people or objects; they’re more about abandoned concepts. Hyla Willis’ installation “All the Deplorables” includes a floor-level architectural array of breakfast-cereal boxes alongside two FedEx boxes stood on end. One, open, is filled garbage-can-style with mostly protest-style placards (one bearing the politically loaded title phrase); the other, closed, is topped by a tableau of old datebooks, prepackaged foods and little railcars whose corporate labels reference (I’m guessing) real-estate displacement, locally and nationally. It’s abandonment as late-capitalist dispossession.

Viewed clockwise, The Domesticity of Abandonment concludes with “In the News,” T. Foley’s series of paper sculptures painstakingly fashioned from photos cut from the front sections of the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, all in wall-mounted, heat-sealed, transparent vinyl boxes. The idea is “to highlight the ephemerality of newsprint and the 24-hour news cycle.” The dynamism of these delicate, typically 3-D figures, like miniature dioramas, honor both the original photographers and Foley’s eye.

Most explicitly on theme is a photo of refugees marching, left to right, along a ridge in low light, the newsprint voided in the shape of the silhouette of a young man in an athletic pose, perhaps a skateboarder, his seeming freedom or exuberance ringing ironic.

D RI S C OL L @ P G HC I T Y PA P E R. C OM

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[DANCE]

AT 15

{PHOTO COURTESY OF ERIC ROSÉ}

Bodiography Contemporary Ballet

{BY STEVE SUCATO} ENTERING ITS 15th season, Bodiography

Contemporary Ballet, like many dance companies, has experienced a number of changes during its lifespan — changes in dancers, repertory and, to a certain extent, vision. One constant, however, has been the affable and Energizer Bunny-like presence of founder/artistic director Maria Caruso.

The face, heart and soul of Bodiography, Caruso has for much of the company’s history been its foremost dancer, chief choreographer and vocal leader.

BODIOGRAPHY CONTEMPORARY BALLET’S

15TH ANNIVERSARY RED CARPET PERFORMANCE 8 p.m. Sat., Jan. 21. Byham Theater, 101 Sixth St., Downtown. $38-100.

412-456-6666 or www.trustarts.org

Caruso retired as a company dancer last season but remains in those other roles, moving Bodiography ever forward. She recently added to the organization BCB3, a troupe of former Bodiography dancers, and BCB Charlotte, a North Carolina branch of Bodiography.

To celebrate the company’s crystal anniversary, Bodiography presents its 15th Anniversary Red Carpet Performance, Jan. 21 at Downtown’s Byham Theater.

The program of new, repertory and commissioned works, all choreographed by Caruso, begins with three new short works.

One is performed by Bodiography’s student troupe, one is a work for BCB3, and the third is a duet for two of Caruso’s dancers at La Roche College, where she directs the dance department.

Beyond that, Caruso says that she let her dancers choose the bulk of the works on this program from among the 80-plus pieces she has choreographed. The oldest chosen, 2005’s “Solace,” is a 30-minute piece in three movements set to music by Arvo Pärt that will be played live by The Pittsburgh Festival Orchestra. It was inspired by a traumatic car crash involving Caruso’s mother, and the love and support she and her family received afterward.

Originally created for the student dance troupe at Winthrop University, “Life Tides” (2015) explores the idea that life began in water. Set to music by Brooklyn-based film composer Garth Stevenson, the 10-minute abstract piece uses a large expanse of fabric and flowing skirts to create the sense of a watery landscape the dancers move within.

Another work created for another troupe, “Parabola” (2015), was originally staged by Charlotte-based Open Door Studio’s performance ensemble. The eightminute contemporary ballet set to music

by Swedish electronic duo The Knife focuses on spatial patterning.

Rounding out the program is Caruso’s latest, “Pathways.” The 16-minute abstract work is set to music by French musician St Germain and explores differing movement routes.

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 01.18/01.25.2017

FOR THE WEEK OF

01.19-01.26.17 Full events listed online at www.pghcitypaper.com “A lot of boxing stories are about how people box. I wanted to tell a story about why they box,” says Marco Ramirez of his 2015 play The Royale. “One of the reasons that the play has had this wonderful life is because it’s not really about the mechanics of boxing. We all know what it’s like to fight for something we believe in.”

The Royale, which opens Jan. 21 at City Theatre, centers on Jay Jackson, an African-American boxer who pursues the heavyweight championship in the early 20th century despite the realities of Jim Crow — and the possible repercussions from beating a white athlete. Jay’s story was inspired by the life of Jack Johnson, who won the championship in 1910.

Marco Ramirez

Ramirez, an accomplished playwright whose writing and producing credits for TV include Orange Is the New Black and Daredevil, didn’t initially intend to write a play about race. “I knew I wanted to write a play about boxing,” he says by phone. “I didn’t know exactly what time period I was going to land in. I realized that what really interested me was the percussive elements, the bare-bones theater elements. It made the most sense when I was looking at stuff from the Jack Johnson era.”

Those percussive elements helped earn the show acclaim during its run at New York’s Lincoln Center Theater.

Instead of traditional fight choreography, actors simulate pugilism with body percussion. Ramirez says he wrote the play with that element in mind. “Boxing is so based on improvisation that you’ll always be able to tell when it’s fake. I wanted to approach it from that dance element.”

That’s an element that can’t be reproduced on screen. “I always wanted it to be a play that could only be experienced in the flesh. A theater experience should feel like going to see a band live — you should get something out of it that you couldn’t get listening at home.”

BY AMANI NEWTON

Sat., Jan. 21-Feb. 12. 1300 Bingham St., South Side. $15-59. 412-431-2489 or www.citytheatrecompany.org NEWS

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In recent years, state governments have been hacking away at abortion rights, imposing legal restrictions on providers not faced by other medical professionals. Dawn Porter’s new feature-length documentary Trapped follows clinic workers and lawyers who are fighting to keep abortion safe and legal for American women. Tonight’s free screening at Chatham University, part of the Just Films series, is followed by a panel discussion featuring health-care providers and other experts. Bill O’Driscoll 6:30 p.m. Eddy Theater, Chatham campus, Shadyside.

Free. www.justfilmspgh.org

Winter — which of course you have barely noticed anyway — is officially one-third over. Celebrate with the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s quarterly Gallery Crawl. The free event includes art exhibits, live music and more at about 20 Downtown venues. Wood Street Galleries, for instance, opens Permutations of Light, featuring the U.S. debuts of two artists: Canada’s David Spriggs and Amsterdam-based Matthijs Munnik, both with light-based installations (pictured). Shaw Galleries has A Monk’s Numiosum, with surrealist paintings by Latrobe-based Benedictine monk Father Robert Keffer.

Future Tenant opens For, Fore, Four, an exhibit exploring ordered systems.

And the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council’s gallery presents Parallel Mutation, curated by comics artist Juan José Fernández, featuring original art and more by 12 local comics makers.

Elsewhere, at the Trust Arts Education Center, attractions include improv music and comedy from Looking Deep Productions. Also, also check out the craft vendors at the Winter

WORDS Suzanne Rivecca appeared on the scene with Death Is Not an Option, a 2010 story collection that won multiple awards and honors, including the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Rome Prize in Literature. Her latest fiction project draws on her decade of experience working with people in homelessness and poverty in San Francisco. Rivecca visits Alphabet City for a free reading tonight. BO 8 p.m. 40 W. North Ave., North Side.

Free. 412-323-0278 or www.alphabetcity.org

^ Fri., Jan. 20: Gallery Crawl {IMAGE COURTESY OF THE PITTSBURGH CULTURAL TRUST}

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^ Sat., Jan. 21: Amazing Butterflies

59_4.75_x_4.75.indd 1

1/12/17 9:27 AM

Night Market (925 Liberty Ave.), and live music at the Backstage Bar. Later on, a special edition of the Crawl After Dark includes two ticketed events: the Pittsburgh debut of Portland, Ore.-based soul singer and composer Jarrod Lawson (9 p.m., at the August Wilson Center, $25) and Comedy Royale, an improv contest with audience judging at Arcade Comedy Theater (10 p.m., $7-12). BO 5:30-10 p.m. Downtown. Free. 412-456-6666 or www.trustarts.org

DANCE A hit at the 2015 Edinburgh festival, Igor and Moreno’s Idiot-Syncrasy weaves together modern dance, performance art, and traditional Sardinian and Basque folk songs into one high-energy performance. The Guardian promises that “around 30 minutes into the show, everyone is loving Igor and Moreno, and some of the audience are cheering them along. But different tensions and nuances also filter into the material.” Back home, the U.K.-based troupe’s show was nominated for the National Dance Awards; tonight and tomorrow, it’s part of the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater’s World Stage Series. Amani Newton 7 p.m. Also 7 p.m.

Sat., Jan. 21. KST Alloy Studios, 5530 Penn Ave., Friendship. Admission is pay-what-makes-youhappy. 412-363-3000 or www.kelly-strayhorn.org

^ Thu., Jan. 19: Trapped

COMEDY Seventeen local comics — nearly two for each amendment in the Bill of Rights — will turn out tonight for What a Joke, at Lawrenceville’s Unplanned Comedy Theater. It’s Pittsburgh’s iteration of this week’s 25-city national comedy fundraiser for the ACLU. (If you have to ask why the ACLU can use a fundraiser, you probably don’t know what’s up in D.C. this weekend.) Talent joining host Mike Sasson includes Ed Bailey, Norlex Belma, Samantha Bentley, Ian Insect, Terry Jones, Molly Sharrow, Alex Stypula, John Dick Winters and

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 01.18/01.25.2017

EVERYONE IS A CRITIC In Oakland NOW OPEN!

EVENT: Cerebral Sorcery, with magicians David London and Francis Menotti, at Pittsburgh Playwrights Theater, Downtown

PARTY

CRITIC: Veronica Kaslewicz, 29, a pharmacist from Pleasant Hills WHEN: Sun.,

Jan. 15

10PM -2AM

SATURDAY

JAN. 21ST

I liked it a lot, it was very interesting and riveting. And I guess it was very mind-bending. I guess it was about thinking outside the box. I found it on Groupon and I gave it as a gift to my parents for Christmas. I would definitely come again.

B Y AMANI NE WTO N

Cerebral Sorcery continues through Jan. 21; www.cerebralsorcery.com

LIVE PERFORMANCE BYY

TRUELY AP SPECIAL GUEST

$10 ADMISSION â&#x20AC;˘ 21+ ONLY â&#x20AC;˘ LADIES FREE UNTIL 11PM

Mike Wysocki. The event is BYOB, with adult content, but under-21s are welcome â&#x20AC;&#x201D; because they need civil liberties, too. BO 8 p.m. 5601 Butler St., Lawrenceville (second floor). $15. www.whatajokefest.com

HAPPY HOUR DAILY SPECIALS

$2 Well Drinks $1 Bottles of Domestic $3 Fireball Shots All day everyday $6 Pitchers (select)

saturday 01.21 EXHIBIT They donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t fly much, but the butterflies in the Carnegie Museum of Natural Historyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s collection have long comprised one of its most popular exhibits. Starting today, a new show teaches about butterflies in a more interactive way. Amazing Butterflies includes everything from a â&#x20AC;&#x153;butterfly ziplineâ&#x20AC;? (to simulate flight) and a giant caterpillar entry tunnel to a giant maze and games about nectar and lifecycles. The showâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s up till spring â&#x20AC;&#x201D; just in time to see real butterflies.

BO 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Exhibit continues through April 23. 4400 Forbes Ave., Oakland. $11.95-19.95 (free for kids under 2).

412-622-3131 or www.carnegiemnh.org

328 Atwood Street â&#x20AC;˘ Oakland Join us JAN. 20 for our NO-KIDS NIGHT!

STAGE The Confidential Musical Theater Project only has one rule: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t stop â&#x20AC;&#x201C; no matter what.â&#x20AC;? The Project, which operates in 14 cities, has a Pittsburgh iteration. Tonight, watch as some gutsy actors and musicians, with scant preparation, stage a mystery musical.

Individual cast members {PHOTO COURTESY OF DAVID BACHMAN PHOTOGRAPHY} get the script for a rarely ^ Sat., Jan. 21: Richard the Lionheart performed musical ahead of time, but must keep it secret; only an hour before show time do they meet the rest of the cast. There are no auditions, and roles are assigned without regard to age, race, body type, gender or Actorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Equity status. Tonightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s show will be performed with live musical accompaniment at the Neu Kirche Contemporary Art Center. AN 7:30 p.m. 1000 Madison Ave., North Side. $25. 412-322-2224 or eventbrite.com

Play with fiber optics, learn about lasers, and produce light from chemical reactions.

3OXV IRXU çRRUV RI H[KLELWV FDVK EDUV DQG NO KIDS!

CarnegieScienceCenter.org Tickets $12 in advance/ $17 at the door

CARNEGIE SCIENCE CENTER

OPERA Pittsburgh Opera general director Christopher Hahn expands the companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s repertoire with another baroque work, Handelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Richard the Lionheart. The difficulty in offering an authentic performance of this kind is high; Hahn is CONTINUES ON PG. 32

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Men’s Underwear Socks Swimwear Shirts & More

5968 Baum Blvd East Liberty TRIMpittsburgh.com

{PHOTO COURTESY OF JOAN MARCUS}

^ Tue., Jan. 24: Hedwig and the Angry Itch

presenting the experience as it may have been enjoyed when first performed in the 1720s. The Chatham Baroque ensemble accompanies the orchestra with a harpsichordist, and the role of King Richard, originally written for a castrato, will be performed by mezzo-soprano Leah de Guyl. Crystal Manich provides the stage direction; there are four performances at CAPA Theater starting with tonight’s.

AN 8 p.m. Continues through Jan. 29. 111 Ninth St., Downtown. $51-61.

412-281-0912 or www.pittsburghopera.org

monday 01.23 ART

Do You Shop at Convenience Stores?

Have you ever purchased energy drinks, cookies, or cigarettes from a convenience store?

If so you may be eligible for a research study. The RAND Corporation, in Pittsburgh, is conducting a research study to learn about what ADULTS, ages 18-65, buy at convenience stores. Participation requires completion of a 10 minute phone or internet survey, one 90 minute visit to the RAND study center, and a short follow-up phone call. People who complete the study will be compensated for their time and effort with $75 in gift cards. Parking or bus passes will be provided.

If you are interested and want to learn more about the study, please call 412-204-7353, e-mail adult-cstore-study@rand.org or visit us at www.rand.org/storestudy.

The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decision making through research and analysis.

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 01.18/01.25.2017

It’s not every day there’s an art show in a bar. OK, it’s almost no day. But tonight, classic neighborhood joint Gene’s Place, in Oakland, hosts Beer and Cheap Art 2017, a one-man show by the locally based artist Patrick Courtenay, a.k.a. PAVI. Sales of his outsider-style work will go to fund development of his latest project, a labor-trading app.

BO 6-11:30 p.m. 3616 Louisa St., Oakland.

Free. 412-682-2158

tuesday 1.24 STAGE That rare “rock musical” that actually sounds like it could have been a rock ’n’ roll album (think glam Bowie) returns.

The nationally touring version of John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask’s Hedwig and {ART BY PAVI} ^ Mon., Jan. 23: Beer and Cheap Art 2017 the Angry Inch, which won a Tony as best musical revival, hits the Benedum Center tonight and tomorrow. Broadway’s Euan Morton stars as the transgender East German rock singer adrift in the U.S.A., singing “Sugar Daddy” and “Origin of Love.” BO 7:30 p.m. Also 7:30 p.m. Wed., Jan. 25. 237 Seventh Ave., Downtown. $26-71. 412-456-6666 or www.trustarts.org

DE

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the

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ALMOST EVERY DISH WAS UNDER $10, AND THE PORTIONS WERE TREMENDOUS

FANCY DONUTS {BY RYAN DETO} Last summer, inside its East Carson Street storefront, the Pub Chip Shop started making donuts in a very low-key fashion.

“We opened kinda quiet,” says Mindy Heisler, of the Pub Chip Shop and the driving force behind its new donut venture, Just Good Donuts.

The take-out joint specializes in British Isles cuisine, but the idea to make donuts came from several inspirations.

One was a random night of deep-frying cinnamon buns, leading the team to think, “Let’s just make donuts.” Another was Heisler, who has Polish roots, wanting to honor paczki, a traditional fried-dough pastry. And lastly, there was the hope of recreating those Bethel Park Kmart donuts from Heisler’s youth.

{CP PHOTO BY KATEY LADIKA}

An assortment of donuts from Just Good Donuts {CP PHOTO BY VANESSA SONG}

But Just Good Donuts’ products are far from the generic deep-fried offerings of a big-box store — these donuts have pizzazz, with a lively selection of flavored toppings.

Heisler says the most popular variety is the maple and vindaloo-spiced-bacon donut.

Other creative toppings include: Nutella with caramelized banana, root beer float, “Clark Bar” and molasses with ginger snaps.

While these toppings have gotten wilder since summer, Heisler says that it’s the quality of the basic donut base that must stay consistent. “As long as I start with a good donut, anything I put on will be good, too.”

Just Good Donuts sells its creations from 6 a.m. until they’re gone (usually between 1 and 2 p.m., according to Heisler), and is open seven days a week. The shop takes pre-orders and will even make a themed platter for weddings. (Wedding donuts are a thing now; watch out, cookie table!) And don’t worry about breaking the bank for fancy donuts. A simply styled donut is just $1, and the fancier ones are $1.50-2; there is a discount on orders of a dozen.

“I priced them that way because they are donuts,” says Heisler. “They are not going to clean your house. There’s no reason to pay $24 for a half-dozen donuts.”

RYANDETO@PGHCITYPAPER.COM

Seared salmon with an Asian-style glaze, sautéed greens and broccoli

HEARTY HELPINGS {BY ANGELIQUE BAMBERG + JASON ROTH}

W

HEN UUBU 6 first opened more

than a decade ago, more than its peculiar name set it apart.

The restaurant became an unlikely destination on the South Side Slopes, serving outstanding contemporary food in a surprising location, a gussied-up former union hall built in 1919 on a narrow, otherwise residential street. (The name, pronounced “ooh-boo six,” is a rendering of the acronym WBU, for Workingman’s Beneficial Union 6.) After a good run, UUBU 6 closed, to the lamentations of its many devotees. Eventually, it reopened, but under a new guise.

We were happy to discover that that did not include redecorating. Part of the charm of the original restaurant was its subtle gloss on the old union hall’s original spaces. One dining room is still painted

delicacies such as quail, venison and oysters in velvety sauces, savory ragouts and champagne vinaigrette, the new menu seems to reach back to evoke the hearty, inexpensive yet filling food of the German immigrants who settled the South Side Slopes and founded the WBU: burgers, hoagies and old-world Pittsburgh standards like schnitzel and sole. Throw in some spaghetti, ravioli and a vaguely Mexican approach to grilled chicken, and the menu seemed, frankly, scattershot.

We can’t complain about the value, though. Almost every dish was well under $10, and the portions were tremendous. Chicken strips, at least a half-dozen of them served with a mound of fries, were no tepid planks or modest fingers, but fat, juicy hunks of white meat encased in deep-brown, crunchy panko

deep persimmon, with floor-length velvet drapes a lush touch; another’s painted pine floors, plywood paneling and pressed-tin ceiling make us wish the proverbial walls could talk. “WBU” is still etched on the glass behind the wooden bar, and other WBU memorabilia is displayed lovingly, without irony.

UUBU 6 178 Pius St., South Side Slopes.

412-381-7695 HOURS: 6-9 p.m.; open days vary weekly; check UUBU 6 Facebook page for current info PRICES: $3-12 LIQUOR: Full bar

It’s the cuisine that is completely revamped from the UUBU 6 of 10 years ago. Where that menu was replete with

1830 E. Carson St., South Side. 412-381-2447 NEWS

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Formerly the

Tin Angel

Make your Valentine’s Day reservation Today!

Special menu available.

Diningg with a

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The first hit is free.

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crust. We ordered them for one of our children, but these would easily satisfy a hungry adult.

The same chicken recurred in the chicken parmesan sandwich, served on a toasted ciabatta. Again, there was plenty of chicken, and the melted cheese was adequate, but the tomato sauce was a bit scant.

The Buffalo chicken sandwich showcased grilled chicken on more of a soft, hoagie-style roll. Two entire breasts were perfectly cooked to their moist and tender peak. They made for a sandwich so large, Angelique attacked it with a knife and fork. The Buffalo sauce was more timid than she would have liked, and though the sandwich was topped with melted cheddar, it cried out for Buffalo sauce’s traditional tangy counterpart, blue cheese.

UUBU 6’s enormous burger — the menu claimed six ounces, but it seemed closer to eight — was served on yet a third bread, a suitably broad, Kaiseresque roll that was not exactly crusty, but with more body than a soft bun. Alas, softness described the burger within.

Cooked to medium rare, per our request, it was more mushy than juicy, and rather under-seasoned. We do give credit to the kitchen for somehow scaring up worthwhile tomato slices to go on top.

UUBU 6’s fries were a puzzlement.

Identified as Yukon golds, they were, indeed, pale gold in color, but their cut was unusual, to say the least: stout as a steakcut fry, yet short, perhaps an inch or so.

As a result, they seemed less like French fries and almost more like a roasted-potato side dish. This might have been OK, but their paleness betrayed insufficient cooking, with neither well-developed flavor nor light, fluffy interior.

The kitchen was most successful with our entrée of pork schnitzel in a sort of gravy with tomatoes. Schnitzel is supposed to be a thin cutlet — the literal meaning of the word in German — whereas this was thicker, akin to the chunky chicken strips. But the pork was tender nonetheless, and the crust held up under the sauce, so we won’t be picky about its name. The sauce was pleasing, not unlike a central European hunter’s stew, albeit without mushrooms.

In its new incarnation, UUBU 6 retains the intimate, clubby atmosphere that made the original so appealing, but the old effortless elegance was undercut by a certain disorganization, with holiday decorations and their boxes carelessly stashed in view of diners. The menu, too, had a thrown-together feel, and while there was evidence of effort and expertise in the kitchen, it was not consistently executed.

INF O @PGH C IT YPAPE R . C O M

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 01.18/01.25.2017

[PERSONAL CHEF]

FELICIA’S ENCHILADAS {BY CELINE ROBERTS} My Uncle Dick and I hardly ever speak now, but I remember a time when he would tell me about the winding adventures of his youth. A fantastic storyteller, cook and world-wanderer, Dick is also an artist and maker of children’s toys. In the 1970s, he moved down to San Miguel de Allende, a small mountain town in central Mexico that was a mecca for artists and craftsmen. I think he lived out some of the happiest times of his life there in the small apartment he rented.

The caretaker was a woman named Felicia, and it was she who passed this recipe on to him. I’ve modified it for ease, but I still imagine him young and happy while I’m eating it.

INGREDIENTS FILLING • 2 dozen corn tortillas • 1 cup cheddar cheese or pepper jack, shredded • 1 cup cilantro, chopped • 1 cup onions, chopped • 1 16-oz. can refried beans ( I like the kind with jalapeños) os) • ½ tbsp. chili powder WHITE SAUCE • 2 tbsp. flour • 3 tbsp. butter • 2 cups chicken stock • 1 4.5-oz. can green diced chilies • 1 pint sour cream INSTRUCTIONS Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare the filling by sauteeing the onions for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until softened. Warm the refried beans until spreadable. Heat a frying pan on the stove over low to medium heat; add a little canola oil (or any oil besides olive oil). Fry tortillas in pan for 15 seconds on both sides.

In a 13-by-9-inch pan, lay down fried tortillas until the bottom is covered.

Then, layer refried beans, cheese, onions and cilantro. Repeat layers until pan is full, then top with a layer of tortillas.

Set aside.

In a saucepan over medium heat, melt butter and mix in flour to form a roux. Add chicken stock and stir until thickened. Add chilies. Turn down heat.

Add sour cream. Stir in chili powder.

Pour over tortillas until covered. Bake for 25 minutes.

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Korean BBQ Buffet FRIDAYS-SUNDAY 4-9PM • CHICKEN/ BEEF BULGOGI • • PORK, BEEF SHORT RIB • • SCALLOPS, SHRIMP •

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Pittsburgh Drinks co-authors Cody McDevitt and Sean Enright at Tiki Lounge

[ON THE ROCKS]

PITTSBURGH DRINKS A journalist and a veteran bartender team up for a history of imbibing in Pittsburgh {BY CELINE ROBERTS} BARS HAVE LONG been a center for business deals and creative pursuits, but modern collaborations start through social media.

Pittsburgh will get the best of both with the release of Pittsburgh Drinks: A History of Cocktails, Nightlife & Bartending Tradition, by co-authors Sean Enright and Cody McDevitt. Enright, a bartender in Pittsburgh for the past 20 years at establishments like Spoon, Embury, Tiki Lounge and the Carrick Literary Club, met McDevitt on social media as he was researching the history of Pittsburgh’s drinking culture. They decided to use their mutual expertise for a book project.

McDevitt, who writes for The Somerset Daily American and founded the Rosedale Oral History Project, says he had a hunger to prove himself as a writer. When the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette started offering digitized archives, he immediately subscribed and started looking through them, realizing that he could use them for research, specifically local research, much more efficiently than any other source.

“I started in [the time frame of] 1888 to 1932, typed in ‘speakeasy’ and went through as many articles as I could find to re-tell the speakeasy history of Pittsburgh,” says McDevitt. Publications like the Pittsburgh Courier, the famed AfricanAmerican newspaper, were particularly helpful because they paid more attention to the beverage and cultural scene than did other papers. Researching more recent history, he tracked down the living major players from the industry for interviews.

The result is a history that runs from the late 19th century and the speakeasy era through the café societies of the 1930s and ’40s to the cocktail lounges of the ’50s, through the ’60s hippie scene in Shadyside and onward to present. The most recent establishments granted full histories are Butcher and the Rye and täkō. “The story is much larger than a history of Pittsburgh’s cocktail scene since 1996,” says McDevitt, citing the year the cocktail revival is widely thought to have begun.

Enright’s contributions are the living embodiment of the history: recipes and the stories of those who made them.

Enright bartended at pioneering local cocktail bar Embury. “I was really meticulous about cataloging every recipe we did there. Since Embury, around 2009 and 2010, I’ve collected about 70 pages of recipes, double-sided, with about 20 to 30 recipes on each page. I realized I had this huge compilation of recipes from both national and Pittsburgh bartenders, and I really wanted to share what Pittsburgh was doing. I think we have a really unique style of bartending here,” he says.

Homages to current local bartenders also appear. “It’s promoting the local talent we have in Pittsburgh and the bartending craft. That was a lot of what I was trying to bring to the book,” he says.

Look for a book release on March 20.

Spirit, in Lawrenceville, will host a book launch on March 27, with guest bartenders and bands fronted by them.

“It’s a big bartender’s bash,” says Enright.

Check us out at 1241 Penn Avenue Downtown / Strip 412-281-9956

OAXACA INSPIRED CUISINE Featuring Our Chef Adan Morales

Friday, January 20

LIVE MUSIC LATIN GUITAR Our bar will be offering free snacks during HAPPY HOUR 5-7pm Monday-Friday

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BOOZE BATTLES {BY CELINE ROBERTS}

Each week, we order the same cocktail at two different bars for a friendly head-to-head battle.

Go to the bars, taste both drinks and tell us what you like about each by tagging @pghcitypaper on Twitter or Instagram and use #CPBoozeBattles. If you want to be a part of Booze Battles, send an email to food-and-beverage writer Celine Roberts, at celine@pghcitypaper.com.

THE DRINK: HINT OF MINT

VS. r it a s n Beers a ic x e $1 off M eti zers $2 off app

$5 Ma rg a

DiAnoia’s DiA i ’ Eatery E t

Tender Bar + Kitchen

2549 Penn Ave., Strip District

4300 Butler St., Lawrenceville

DRINK: Flipping the Bird INGREDIENTS: Stonewall rum, Branca Menta amaro, cream, egg, nutmeg OUR TAKE: The warm aroma of nutmeg is the first note in this frothy eggnog-like drink. Mint follows closely on its heels, while the honeyed taste of rum provides backbone. Nutmeg returns on the finish, emerging from the silky texture of the foam.

DRINK: The Sheriff of Pitkin County INGREDIENTS: Zacapa Centenario 23 rum, black-strap rum, allspice dram, Branca Menta, grapefruit, egg white, nutmeg, coffee bitters OUR TAKE: This cocktail strikes both comforting and refreshing notes in the midst of chilly temperatures. The acidity of the grapefruit and the mint notes of the Branca Menta brighten the flavor profile of the egg white and nutmeg. Coffee bitters add depth and a trace of earthiness to this creamy wisp of a drink.

www.elcampesinospgh.com

[DAILY RUNDOWN]

City Paper’s food podcasts, Sound Bite and Five Minutes in Food History will return in February.

Check out our archives online at www.pghcitypaper.com

One Bordeaux, One Scotch, One Beer Brancott Estate Sauvignon Blanc 2015 $ 7/3-oz. pour; $11/6 oz.; $15/9 oz.

“I just had a date last night and I brought this bottle along.

It’s very popular, and we sell so much of it here. It has grapefruit and tropical flavors.”

A newsletter you’ll actually want to read.

— RECOMMENDED BY JOE MARASCO, BARTENDER AT THE STEELHEAD BRASSERIE AND WINE BAR

Brancott Estate Sauvignon Blanc 2015 is available at Steelhead Brasserie, and at Wine Bar and Fine Wine & Good Spirits stores.

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 01.18/01.25.2017

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BURGER KING {BY AL HOFF}

SILENCE ’S BIG IDEAS FELT TRIVIALIZED WHEN REPRESENTED BY TWO LIMITED ARCHETYPES

John Lee Hancock’s dramedy The Founder recounts how one California hamburger stand became the global force and mega-brand that is McDonald’s. It begins in the mid-1950s with Ray Kroc (Michael Keaton), a struggling salesman always on the hunt for the golden ticket; he’s currently hawking multi-spindle milkshake machines without much success.

BATTLE OF FAITH

On the go: Ray Kroc (Michael Keaton)

Except that one place — a take-out hamburger stand in San Bernadino — needs several in a hurry. It’s owned by two brothers, Dick (Nick Offerman) and Mac McDonald (John Carroll Lynch). When Kroc shows up, they show him the secret to their success: a streamlined process of making consistent burgers, fries and drinks. The brothers have the food-prep process down, and have even dreamed up the signature golden arches. Kroc smells opportunity, and signs a deal to roll out franchises in the Midwest, where he lives.

After some early bumps, things proceed grandly, with arches joining the skyline along with those other reliable American totems, crosses and flags.

The first half of the film plays like a corporate hagiography, casting a rosy glow over the innovative ideas and practices that came to define McDonald’s as well as countless other restaurants and retail stores. But then the film turns darker: Kroc becomes a jerk in his personal life; the deals get uglier; and the story illuminates a take-no-prisoners form of capitalism. It’s business, not brothers or burgers. “Dog eat dog, rat eat rat,” explains Kroc (in perhaps the last time the media-savvy marketer ever mentioned those animals when discussing his restaurants).

Keaton is a reliable actor, and well suited for this role, which requires him to travel from sympathetic everyman to self-interested cutthroat masquerading as an everyman. This odd shift in tone — it’s the American dream backed with the American nightmare — turns a standard bio-pic into something slightly more interesting. We celebrate the individual achievement, but the story is never as glossy as the corporate dossier suggests.

Still, it is the victor who writes history, and billions and billions of hamburgers served makes The Founder, warts and all, a story of success. Starts Fri., Jan. 20

{BY AL HOFF}

Tending to the flock: Andrew Garfield and Yosuke Kubozuka

M

ARTIN SCORSESE’S new movie Si-

lence takes place in late-17th-century Japan, a country in the final stages of ridding itself of European Catholic missionaries and stamping out any residual followers. But back in Portugal, two young priests — Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Garrpe (Adam Driver) — decide to sneak into Japan and determine the fate of their mentor, Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson), said to have renounced his faith. Impossible!

They make it to a tiny fishing village of converts, but in time, all Christians are tracked down by the Inquisitor (Issei Ogata) and forced to renounce their faith under threat of torture or death. Rodrigues proves the holdout, enduring all manner of spiritual, psychological and physical abuse.

Scorsese’s slow-motion epic is an exploration of faith that is of interest, but not particularly entertaining. The film’s length is indulgent, and repetitive scenes grow tedious. It has an experiential quality — a gorgeous dourness — that may engross those who are moved by its literal depiction of keeping faith.

Silence aims for lyricism but is often ham-fisted. Characters do a lot of themes-

repeal-and-replace around globe, and often at the point of a sword.)

Speaking of pointy sticks, Silence offers a series of baroque tortures involving hot springs, inversion boxes and epigrammatic lectures; not content to simply crucify Christians, the Japanese erect the crosses in the rising surf. Scorsese films such scenes in glorious, lurid detail (think: an especially solemn Hammer film).

Viewers will disagree over the success of the thematic material — some will find the work affirmative and inspirational. Alas, I was mildly interested but never converted.

Silence, while acknowledging that different faiths exist, clearly gives primacy to one, and its big ideas felt trivialized when represented by two limited archetypes — the smug oppressor and the unwavering faithful. We have enough troubles without getting into proxy religious wars from centuries ago. Silence might raise questions that could be applied to our contemporary disputes, but it doesn’t offer any clarity.

Frankly, the film could just as easily steer people away from organized religions, with its depiction of their rigid dogmas and never-ending feuds with other creeds.

speaking (“the price for your glory is their suffering”); voiceovers explain what to think; and religious totems are fetishized.

It’s not enough that Garfield, with his boyish features and lush mane, is styled like the sad-eyed Jesus of a thousand Renaissance oils and Tijuana tapestries — Scorsese literally superimposes a portrait of Jesus onto Garfield.

SILENCE DIRECTED BY: Martin Scorsese STARRING: Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver, Issei Ogata In English, and some Japanese, with subtitles

The handsome Silence employs plenty of craft — from fine cinematography and a variety of exquisite mists and fogs, to appropriately raggedy costumes and well, silence (ambient sounds take the place of Scorsese’s usual classic-rock tunes). And in the silence, there are long stretches for viewers to think about religion and its cultural and geo-political imports. (Couldn’t help thinking about how the European Christians lauded here did a lot of religious

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23-year-old blind piano prodigy. The pair is aiming for a jazz competition, but each is beset with challenges that he works through. The film is co-presented by Sembène —The Film & Art Festival. 7 p.m. Wed., Jan. 18. Alphabet City, 40 W. North Ave., North Side. Free; RSVP at www.alphabetcity.org.

FILM CAPSULES CP

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THE THING. A bunch of feckless pot-smokers holed up in some Antarctic “research” facility are visited by a bad alien in John Carpenter’s 1982 remake of the 1951 sci-fi classic. 7:30 p.m. Wed., Jan. 18. AMC Loews Waterfront. $5

ELLE. Provocative Dutch director Paul Verhoeven’s latest film opens with a rape in progress, as a middle-aged woman is attacked in her own home by a ski-masked assailant. After the assault, the woman, Michele (Isabelle Huppert), reacts rather sanguinely; she goes on with her day-to-day life, sorting through various domestic and work issues. Verhoeven keeps the focus on Michele, and the folks who weave through her life, gradually illuminating but not totally explaining Michele’s character and her response to the rape.

The film is a hybrid: part slow-burn revenge thriller as Michele seeks her rapist, and part potboiler incorporating several standard melodramas. Even if you’re fine with the tricky subject matter, Elle suffers from too many subplots, and runs on 15 minutes too long. But the work is a real showcase for Huppert, who is intense and utterly compelling. Michele is not likable in the standard sense — she is flinty, even cruel — but Huppert makes her somebody you can’t look away from. There’s a fair amount of pulpy nonsense and borderline exploitative material that swirls around, but Huppert grounds most of it.

(See www.pghcitypaper.com for longer review.)

In French, with subtitles. Starts Fri., Jan. 20.

Regent Square (Al Hoff) LIVE BY NIGHT. Ben Affleck stars as a gangster in this crime drama, adapted from a Dennis Lehane novel, set during Prohibition. Affleck, who also directed, portrays Joe Coughlin, an Irish kid from Boston who, during the World War, “left a soldier, came back an outlaw.” After some trouble in Beantown, Coughlin winds up in Ybor City (described here as “the Harlem of Tampa”), where he sets up a number of lucrative boozerunning deals for the Italian mob back in Boston.

You know the drill: Things go good, then they go bad, a lot of people get shot, and somebody turns into a tent preacher. OK, that last plot point is unusual, and while interesting, it was a moody bit of side business that felt out of step with the rote pulp-fiction aspect of the whole. Live By Night’s primary takeaway is how dull it is; there are a lot of players and set-up, and what action does transpire is wholly expected. It’s an ensemble piece — that also just happens to feature the uninspiring Affleck in every scene — with plenty of good actors wasted along the way. I’d give this bootleg hooch a pass, and wait for the real deal to roll back around. (AH) PATERSON. Written and directed by Jim Jarmusch, this low-key observational film spends a week in the life of Paterson (Adam Driver), a bus driver who lives and works in Paterson, N.J. His daily life is defined by routine — the same breakfast, bus route, lunch stop (at the town’s scenic waterfalls), and dog walk ending at the same bar. When not driving the bus, Paterson enjoys a quiet home life with his wife, Laura (Golshifteh Farahani) and writes poetry in a notebook. Truthfully, not much happens, except life’s small moments roll on.

Despite (or because of) his routine, Paterson is keenly observant and open to each day’s gifts, be they a particularly amusing conversation overheard on the bus, or, as in the poem that opens the film, the layers of loveliness contained in a simple box of matches. The film is a celebration of “everyday poetry,” and those who take the time to find it. There is a whimsical quality to the film, particularly in the couple’s relationship — a partnership of creative souls, tucked cozily in their oddly decorated home. Laura is exuber-

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TRAPPED. Dawn Porter’s new documentary looks at the implementation of TRAP laws (“Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers”) over the last few years, and the detrimental impact the legislation has had on women’s health care. The film also highlights the medical professionals, attorneys and activists fighting back. The film screens as part of an ongoing series of social-justice films. 6:30 p.m. Thu., Jan. 19.

Eddy Theater, Chatham campus, Shadyside. Free. www.justfilmspgh.org

Elle

THE WANDERERS. Philip Kaufman’s 1979 film takes us into the slightly funny, slighty sad world of New York City hoodlum youth, circa 1963. The film, with lots of nostalgic rock ’n’ roll tunes, is adapted from an early Richard Price novel. Jan. 20-21 and Jan. 23-26.

Hollywood EDWARD SCISSORHANDS. Johnny Depp stars as the decidedly different boy-next-door (he has scissors for hands) in Tim Burton’s funny-sweet 1990 film. Jan. 2026. Row House Cinema THE FAULT IN OUR STARS. Two teenage lovebirds, each with cancer, become obsessed with a novel, and travel to Amsterdam to track down its elusive author.

Josh Boone directs this 2014 dramedy. Jan. 20-26.

Row House Cinema

Paterson

Live By Night

antly open about her artistic practices and ambitions, while Paterson is reserved, refusing even to share his poems with her, despite her effusive, unconditional support. (A photo of Paterson in a Marine uniform suggests other possibilities for his adherence to a routine.)

Besides Paterson’s prescribed days, the film also offers other motifs of repetition, from the patterns Laura paints to sightings of twins. Among the film’s bits of deadpan humor are the nods to the city itself — from the wall of Paterson memorabilia at the bar and discussion of William Carlos Williams, who wrote an epic poem about Paterson called Paterson, to a recitation of perhaps the most famous words ever to come from a Patersonian, Lou Costello’s “who’s on first.”

Starts Fri., Jan. 20. AMC Loews Waterfront (AH)

the inspired-by treatment in this ensemble dramedy.

It’s 1979, and in Santa Barbara, Calif., single mom Dorothea (Annette Bening) presides over a large Victorian boarding house; like most of its inhabitants, the house has good bones, but without some TLC is in danger of falling apart. There’s her teenage son, Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann); resident handyman William (Billy Crudup); punkish photographer Abbie (Greta Gerwig); and Jamie’s buddy, Julie (Elle Fanning), who sleeps over a lot.

Sensing she is losing touch with her son, Dorothea recruits Abbie and Julie to help forge new connections. (Spoiler alert: Everybody here needs new and improved connections.) That’s the set-up for a shaggy tale about family (actual and created), growing up, friendship, love, claiming the right to be angry/sad/happy/bored, and the million messy ways people support each other. In the lazier, hazier days before tech, there’s simply a lot of hanging out. Fortunately, these are people you’d want to chill with, especially Bening’s Dorothea, who is imperfectly marvelous. It’s a warm, wise and funny movie that is heartwarming without being sappy. Starts Fri., Jan. 20. Manor (AH)

SAILOR MOON R: THE MOVIE. In a re-release, fans of the Japanese schoolgirl manga can check out a remastered version of the original 1993 film, directed

by Kunihiko Ikuhara. (A 2000 version of the film released in the U.S. was titled Sailor Moon R: The Movie: The Promise of the Rose.) Dubbed, unless noted.

7 p.m. Sat., Jan. 21; 4:30 p.m. Sun., Jan. 22; 7 p.m.

Tue., Jan. 24; and 9:30 p.m. Wed., Jan. 25 (subtitled version). Hollywood SPLIT. Three girls are kidnapped by a man with multiple personalities, some of whom might help them escape. James McAvoy stars in this thriller written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Starts Fri., Jan. 20 20TH CENTURY WOMEN. Five years ago, Mike Mills made Beginners, a film loosely based on his dad’s late-in-life decision to come out as gay. Now the women in his life, particularly his mother, get

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 01.18/01.25.2017

XXX: RETURN OF XANDER CAGE. You thought this bad-ass agent was dead, but he’s back to take down yet another global conspiracy. Vin Diesel and Donnie Yen star in this actioner; D.J. Caruso directs. Starts Fri., Jan. 20

REPERTORY KEEP ON KEEPIN’ ON. Alan Hicks’ 2014 documentary profiles the friendship of music legend Clark Terry, who, at age 89, takes on a student, Justin Kauflin, a

OCEAN WAVES. A young man recalls his high school days and, in particular, one girl, a transfer student from the big city. This is a new digital restoration of Tomomi Mochizuki’s 1993 anime. Screens in two versions: dubbed and in Japanese, with subtitles.

Jan. 20-26. Row House Cinema MERCHANTS OF DOUBT. Robert Kenner’s documentary looks at the rise of corporate disinformation and various PR strategies designed to counter potentially damaging research. To be followed by a discussion. 7 p.m. Fri., Jan. 20. Phipps Conservatory, Schenley Park, Oakland. Free with regular admission. phipps.conservatory.org FREEDOM TO MARRY. Eddie Rosenstein’s recent documentary charts the decades-long fight to win marriage rights for gay couples, culminating in the recent landmark Supreme Court decision that guaranteed same-sex marriage. It illuminates the hard work of keep-it-steady lawyers who help craft and deliver the winning argument, as well as stories of gay couples whose fates depend on this decision. 7 p.m. Fri., Jan. 20. Alphabet City, 40 W. North Ave., North Side.

Free; RSVP at www.alphabetcity.org.

HARD DAY’S NIGHT. Those boots, those suits!

The Beatles romp and smirk and sing their way through Richard Lester’s exuberant 1964 film. The slimmest of backstage plots simply provides a hook from which to dangle sight gags, visual riffs, four adorable leads and a dozen hit songs. Lester and his offbeat style catch Beatlemania lightning in a bottle: In this first heat of their incredible media celebrity, the lads — and indeed the whole generation they’ll come to represent — just sparkle with youth, enthusiasm and plenty of infectious, mildly anarchic fun. 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. Sun., Jan. 22. Hollywood (AH)

CP

RESIDENT EVIL. Milla Jovovich stars in Paul W.S. Anderson’s 2002 sci-fi actioner about a crew that fights a bunch of folks turned into monsters by a virus.

7:30 p.m. Jan. 25. AMC Loews Waterfront. $5

SUMO SHOW WILL RAISE MONEY FOR GREATER PITTSBURGH YMCA

WHO NEEDS TICKETS? As much as I’d like to say that former New England Patriots offensive lineman Matt Light is a jagoff, he’s actually a pretty nice guy. Sure, he won three Super Bowls and five AFC Championships and went to three Pro Bowls with, quite possibly, the only football team conjured in hell by Satan himself, but he’s doing some good things for folks in Boston.

In 2001, he and his wife started the Light Foundation, designed to help at-risk kids get a chance in life through outdoor programs, scholarships and a host of other programs. They even have a 400acre outdoor and trail facility near Light’s hometown, where participants in the foundation’s programs attend a 10-day leadership camp.

The foundation helps other charities as well, including the Greater Boston Food Bank. That’s where Steelers fans come in.

As a fundraiser for such programs, the Light Foundation is holding a raffle.

Two winners and their guests will receive two in-suite tickets to this Sunday’s AFC Championship game between the Patriots and the Steelers in Foxborough, Mass.; dinner at a local steakhouse with Light and some of his former teammates; an overnight stay; autographed helmets; and travel expenses.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a fan, and it’s for a good cause and the money goes straight to programs,” Light told City Paper the morning after the Steelers’ win over Kansas City. “I keep thinking that I could be spending time with some die-hard Steelers fans. Since there are two winners, it could end up being two Steelers fans and two Patriots fans or four Steelers fans.”

However it goes, Light promises a great experience at the game and a dinner spent telling stories with some former NFL players. In fact, if a Steelers fan wins, Light says he promises to share something special: “I’ve got one heck of a great story about Ben Roethlisberger when we were both Pro Bowlers. I promise, it’s a doozy.”

And what will Light do if a Steelers fan brings up Spygate over dessert? “Well,” he says, laughing. “I won’t have to say anything because I’ll make sure to wear my three Super Bowl rings.”

OK, maybe he’s a bit of a jagoff, but it’s for a good cause.

CDEITCH@PGHCITYPAPER.COM

To enter the Light Foundation Playoff Series Raffle, make a donation from $10 to $3,000 at www.tinyurl.com/CPMattLight.

Your number of entries is tied to the amount of the donation, although Light says last week’s winner spent just $25. The winner will be drawn at 2 p.m. Fri., Jan. 20.

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{BY CHARLIE DEITCH}

{PHOTO COURTESY OF USA SUMO}

Sumo champions Byamba (left) and Yama will clash Jan. 21 at Stage AE.

BIG DEAL {BY CHARLIE DEITCH}

A

NYONE WITH a television set has likely seen the Geico Insurance commercial with the ice-skating sumo wrestler tentatively performing in an Olympic-style event. And if you’ve seen it, you’ve probably wondered how they did it — cables, CGI, Johnny Weir in disguise?

But there were no special effects necessary. It was done by an actual sumo champion and, as it turns out, it wasn’t that hard.

“I never did ice-skating before,” says Byamba, a 360-pound rikishi (wrestler).

“I had two lessons and then did the commercial. Balance is natural to me.”

Despite the size of the athletes, sumo is a sport that requires strength, agility, speed and balance. And, this Saturday, Pittsburghers will have a chance to see the sport in action and dispel any preconceived notions.

The Pittsburgh chapter of the Young Presidents Organization, in conjunction with USA Sumo, will host a Sumo

M A I N F E AT U R E

Showdown event on Jan. 21, at Stage AE. The show will feature two teams of local celebrity combatants captained by two sumo champions, Byamba and the 600-pound Japanese sumo Yama. Proceeds will benefit the YMCA of Greater Pittsburgh. Celebrities include former Steelers punter Josh Miller, Bubba (of Star 100.7), comedian Jim Krenn, the Pirates Parrot, the Penguins’ Iceburgh and several local business executives.

SUMO SHOWDOWN 7 p.m. Sat., Jan. 21. Stage AE, 400 North Shore Drive, North Side. $35-100; $20 for kids under 12.

412-229-5483 or www.ticketmaster.com

USA Sumo founder Andrew Freund says the group puts on about 60 shows a year, and each showcases the sport and allows for audience participation. The three men say they are surprised their events have become so popular. Speaking

through Freund, Yama, who has a fight scene with Keanu Reeves in the upcoming film, John Wick: Chapter 2, says, “In this culture, I didn’t think people would like a sport where your rear isn’t covered. But people like it.”

Byamba says U.S. crowds take to the sport when they see how athletic it is.

“You have to hit someone in a very short time and space, and you have to make fast adjustments,” he says, with Freund translating. “You have to use your whole body in sumo.”

Freund says fans are always impressed by how interesting and exciting sumo is.

Since there aren’t a lot of shows annually, the Pittsburgh show might be the first and last time Pittsburghers see it for awhile.

“This is such a dynamic sport, and there are only two guys in the U.S. that can show the true image and authenticity of the sport, and these are the two guys,” Freund says, of Byamba and Yama. “It’s going to be a great show. Get ready, Pittsburgh — the circus is coming to town.”

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[THE CHEAP SEATS]

DUKE DREAMS

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-Birth Control -STD Testing -Gynecological Care -Pregnancy Testing -Emergency Contraception 933 Liberty Ave. 1.800.230.PLAN www.ppwp.org @PPWPA

THE PHILADELPHIA 76ERS trailed the New York Knicks by one point on Jan. 12 with just under six seconds remaining. A littleknown Sixers backup point guard got the ball and hit a fade-away baseline jumper over future Hall of Famer Carmelo Anthony at the buzzer. Downtrodden Philly fans erupted as their team won its 11th game of the season, surpassing last season’s measly total number of wins. The Twitterverse reacted by asking, “Who is that guy that just bested Melo to win the game?” If you’re a Duquesne basketball fan, you already know who T.J. McConnell is.

McConnell, a Chartiers Valley grad, is in the big time. After playing at Duquesne and Arizona, McConnell made the NBA as an undrafted free agent. An injury to starting Sixers point guard Sergio Rodriguez elevated T.J. to starter, and he is running with it. In addition to the aforementioned buzzer-beater, McConnell had 17 assists in the game just prior to that one. Those 17 assists were the most by a Philadelphia baller in nine years. Under the banners of NBA legends including Wilt Chamberlain, Julius Erving, Charles Barkley and Allen Iverson, T.J. McConnell has a new home.

And that is precisely why you should get up and go see a Duquesne Dukes basketball game. It’s an oft-overlooked program within the city, but it just may give you the best value for your dollar. Freshmen Isiaha Mike and Mike Lewis II are enough reason to buy a ticket. It’s a high level of basketball that features Atlantic 10 opponents like Virginia Commonwealth, Dayton, George Mason and Steph Curry’s alma mater, Davidson.

The Dukes lost more than 70 percent of their scoring players from last year’s team.

Coach Jim Ferry is replacing that offense with a roster of transfers, freshmen and walk-ons; it’s a veritable group of gypsies, tramps and thieves of the court. In fact, those freshmen both started the seasonopener, marking the first time in 10 seasons Duquesne had freshmen in opening-day starter roles. The team has three walk-ons, another two freshmen and four transfers who either start or play backup roles.

Rene Castro, a Boston native, came over from Butler (the college in Indiana, not the nearby town that still has pay phones).

Starter Emile Blackman posted close to 1,000 points at Niagara before coming to Duquesne. Kale Abrahamsson played at Drake, while another starter, Tarin Smith, left the Nebraska Cornhuskers to play for coach Ferry.

{CP PHOTO BY LUKE THOR TRAVIS}

Tarin Smith at the City Game

Mike came to the Dukes via Scarborough, in Ontario. As a high schooler, he was the third-ranked player in all of Canada. Scarborough also gave the world John Candy, Jim Carrey and The Weekend.

Mike may be added to that notable list in a few years because the kid is good.

The trouble with being a diehard Duquesne hoops fan — and you’ll see them all through the Palumbo Center — is if a player is really good, another big program might take him away. That’s what happened with McConnell and Arizona. Now, Isiaha Mike could be on their radar. He’s a 6’8” forward who can electrify a crowd with a power dunk and be aggressive on the boards, and he has a soft touch on his passes. His touch pass to center Darius Lewis helped Duquesne seal a victory recently over the stupidly named St. Louis Billikens. I hate them so much.

Mike Lewis II has been A10 rookie of the week three times this season and needs to be it two more times to tie the school record.

Lewis leads the Dukes in scoring average and three-pointers. He dropped 15 against Pitt in the Dukes’ victorious City Game.

He is vying to be just the fourth freshman in team history to lead the Dukes in scoring. Sophomore Nakye Sanders cleans the boards for Ferry and pulled down 10 of them in a win over Penn State last year.

Besides the talent, Duquesne basketball games are just fun. They seem untarnished — a game without endless corporate logos and mind-numbing signs and lights that tell you when you should cheer. Duquesne hosts Rhode Island, on Jan. 21; St. Bonaventure, on Feb. 1; and UMass, on Feb. 15. They then close out the year with home games against George Washington, Fordham and St. Joseph’s. Who knows — you might even see a future NBA player.

MIK E WYSO C K I IS A STANDU P C O ME DIAN. F O L L OW H I M ON T W I T T E R: @ I T S M I K E W YS OC K I

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER

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To participate, you must: • Currently smoke cigarettes • Be 18-55 years old, in good health, and speak fluent English • Be willing to fill out questionnaires, and to not smoke before two sessions.

Earn up to $150 for completing this study.

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Tuesday, 01/24/17, 5:30 PM

OFFICIAL ADVERTISEMENT THE BOARD OF PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE SCHOOL DISTRICT OF PITTSBURGH

Sealed proposals shall be deposited at the Administration Building, Room 251, 341 South Bellefield Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pa., 15213, on February 7, 2017, until 2:00 P.M., local prevailing time for the following:

City Council Chambers 510 City County Building Pittsburgh, PA 15219

Pittsburgh Allegheny K-5 Installation of Classroom Ceiling Fans Electrical Prime

Changed to: Tuesday, 02/28/17, 5:30 PM. Location: Same

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for a research project at Carnegie Mellon University examining physiological responses (heart rate, blood pressure) while individuals perform behavioral tasks.

Project Manual and Drawings will be available for purchase on January 9, 2017 at Modern Reproductions (412-488-7700), 127 McKean Street, Pittsburgh, Pa., 15219 between 9:00 A.M. and 4:00 P.M. The cost of the Project Manual Documents is non-refundable. Project details and dates are described in each project manual.

To be eligible for this study, you must be: • 18-30 yrs. old • In good health • Fluent in English You will earn $25 for your participation in this 2-hour study.

We are an equal rights and opportunity school district.

Parent Hotline: 412-622-7920 www.pps.k12.pa.us

For more information, call: The Behavioral Health Research Lab (412-268-3029) NOTE: Unfortunately, our lab is not wheelchair accessible.

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REPEAT THE ENDING

{BY BRENDAN EMMETT QUIGLEY / WWW.BRENDANEMMETTQUIGLEY.COM}

ACROSS 1. Sputnik letters 5. “For the Record with Greta” channel 10. Caramel candy 14. Spoken exam 15. Not in the dark 16. Nation with a Supreme Leader 17. “America’s Next Top Model” host Ora 18. *Tackle an Internet joke?

20. Help out 21. Going into overtime 22. Hecklephone’s cousins 23. Return a paper clip to its original shape, say 25. Creature that eats bats 26. College application part 28. Sprite alternatives 32. *Ballet gear for an alien?

34. Have second thoughts about 35. Beat decisively 37. Loyal and optimistic type, supposedly 38. Pronoun in Panama 40. Green start 42. Astral altar 43. Contently fill 45. Nation whose currency is the hryvnia: Abbr.

47. *”Hey there,

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 01.18/01.25.2017

poodle!”?

49. Soft shoe 52. Rodeo clown rope 53. ___ soda 54. Legendary blues singer Smith 56. “Designated Survivor” channel 59. Film director Ferrara 60. Scoring stats 63. *Make a flightless bird happy?

65. Plant with white bell-shaped flowers 66. Yours and mine 67. Abbr. on a potato bag 68. Black, in poetry 69. Get down on one’s knees 70. Shitheads 71. Kids who had Commodore 64s

DOWN 1. Celebrity chef Cat 2. Test cheater’s sheet 3. *Provides food for “Africa” rockers?

4. Flatland 5. Framing choice 6. Ren Faire suitors 7. Wearing less clothing 8. Raised up 9. Uber’s Travis Kalanick, e.g.

10. “Illuminations” poet Arthur 11. New Crème Egg flavor (... what?

Canada only? Dammit,

I needed these.)

12. Totally unbelievable 13. Rightmost column 19. Lunchtime 24. Unit of data 25. Tree with a smooth bark 26. Fish with lethal pulses 27. Prepare, as some veggies 29. PlayStation’s streaming service 30. *Laud actress Neuwirth?

31. Hops on a Billabong 33. Totally common 36. Actor Scott of TV’s “See Dad Run”

39. Approves 41. Some art 44. Unbridled joy 46. Art fair awards 48. Dames, back in the days 50. 2016 NBA champs 51. Turntable feature 55. Big pigs 56. Each 57. Crappy photo 58. “Sausage Party” voice actor Michael 59. Fruity drinks from a package 61. Monster who played the chains in “Monster Mash” 62. Little men 64. When jet lag might kick in: Abbr. {LAST WEEK’S ANSWERS}

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FOR THE WEEK OF

Free Will Astrology

01.18-01.25

{BY ROB BREZSNY}

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Some guy I don’t know keeps sending me emails about great job opportunities he thinks I’d like to apply for: a technical writer for a solar-energy company, for example, and a social-media intern for a business that offers travel programs. His messages are not spam. The gigs are legitimate. And yet I’m not in the least interested. I already have several jobs I enjoy, like writing these horoscopes. I suspect that you, too, may receive worthy but ultimately irrelevant invitations in the coming days, Capricorn. My advice: If you remain faithful to your true needs and desires, more apropos offers will eventually flow your way.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): The word “naysayer” describes a person who’s addicted to expressing negativity. A “yeasayer,” on the other hand, is a person who is prone to expressing optimism. According to my assessment of the astrological omens, you can and should be a creative yeasayer in the coming days — both for the sake of your own well-being and that of everyone whose life you touch. For inspiration, study Upton Sinclair’s passage about Beethoven: He was “the defier of fate, the great yea-sayer.” His music is “like the wind running over a meadow of flowers, superlative happiness infinitely multiplied.”

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): If I’m feeling prosaic, I might refer to a group of flamingos as a flock. But one of the more colorful and equally correct terms is a “flamboyance” of flamingos. Similarly, a bunch of pretty insects with clubbed antennae and big fluttery wings may be called a kaleidoscope of butterflies. The collective noun for zebras can be a dazzle, for

pheasants a bouquet, for larks an exaltation, and for finches a charm. In accordance with current astrological omens, I’m borrowing these nouns to describe members of your tribe. A flamboyance or kaleidoscope of Pisceans? Yes! A dazzle or bouquet or exaltation or charm of Pisceans? Yes! All of the above.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Are you more attracted to honing group dynamics or liberating group dynamics? Do you have more aptitude as a director who organizes people or as a sparkplug who inspires people? Would you rather be a Chief Executive Officer or a Chief Imagination Officer? Questions like these will be fertile for you to meditate on in the coming weeks. The astrological omens suggest it’s time to explore and activate more of your potential as a leader or catalyst.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): An eccentric Frenchman named Laurent Aigon grew up near an airport, and always daydreamed

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of becoming a commercial pilot. Sadly, he didn’t do well enough in school to fulfill his wish. Yet he was smart and ambitious enough to accomplish the next best thing: assembling a realistic version of a Boeing 737 cockpit in his home. With the help of Google, he gathered the information he needed, and ordered most of the necessary parts over the internet. The resulting masterpiece has enabled him to replicate the experiences of being a pilot. It’s such a convincing copy that he has been sought as a consultant by organizations that specialize in aircraft maintenance. I suggest you attempt a comparable feat, Taurus: creating a simulated version of what you want. I bet it will eventually lead you to the real thing.

that a “disposition to abstractions, to generalizing and classification, is the great glory of the human mind.” To that lofty sentiment, his fellow artist William Blake responded, “To generalize is to be an idiot; to particularize is the alone distinction of merit.” So I may be an idiot when I make the following generalization, but I think I’m right: In the coming weeks, it will be in your best interests to rely on crafty generalizations to guide your decisions. Getting bogged down in details at the expense of the big picture — missing the forest for the trees — is a potential pitfall that you can and should avoid.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20):

Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal penned the novel Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age. It consists of one sentence. But it’s a long, rambling sentence — 117 pages’ worth. It streams from the mouth of the narrator, who is an older man bent on telling all the big stories of his life. If there were ever to come a time when you, too, would have cosmic permission and a poetic license to deliver a one-sentence, 117-page soliloquy, Libra, it would be in the coming weeks. Reveal your truths! Break through your inhibitions! Celebrate your epic tales! (P.S. Show this horoscope to the people you’d like as your listeners.)

The weather may be inclement where you live, so you may be resistant to my counsel. But I must tell you the meanings of the planetary omens as I understand them, and not fret about whether you’ll act on them. Here’s my prescription, lifted from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden: “We need the tonic of wildness, to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground.” And why does Thoreau say we need such experiences? “We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, to witness our own limits transgressed.”

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Welcome to the most deliciously enigmatic, sensually mysterious phase of your astrological cycle. To provide you with the proper non-rational guidance, I have stolen scraps of dusky advice from the poet Dansk Javlarna (danskjavlarna.tumblr. com). Please read between the lines: 1. Navigate the ocean that roars within the seashell. 2. Carry the key, even if the lock has been temporarily lost. 3. Search through the deepest shadows for the bright light that cast them. 4. Delve into the unfathomable in wordless awe of the inexplicable.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): What exactly would a bolt of lightning taste like?

I mean, if you could somehow manage to roll it around in your mouth without having to endure the white-hot shock. There’s a booze manufacturer that claims to provide this sensation. The company known as Oddka has created “Electricity Vodka,” hard liquor with an extra fizzy jolt. But if any sign of the zodiac could safely approximate eating a streak of lightning without the help of Electricity Vodka, it would be you Leos. These days you have a special talent for absorbing and enjoying and integrating fiery inspiration.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Eighteenth-century painter Joshua Reynolds said

east liberty squirrel hill north hills

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 01.18/01.25.2017

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): When Pluto was discovered in 1930, astronomers called it the ninth planet. But 76 years later, they changed their mind. In accordance with shifting definitions, they demoted Pluto to the status of a mere “dwarf planet.” But in recent years, two renowned astronomers at Caltech have found convincing evidence for a new ninth planet.

Konstantin Batygin and Michael E. Brown are tracking an object that is much larger than Earth.

Its orbit is so far beyond Neptune’s that it takes 15,000 years to circle the sun. As yet it doesn’t have an official name, but Batygin and Brown informally refer to it as “Phattie.” I bring this to your attention, Scorpio, because I suspect that you, too, are on the verge of locating a monumental new addition to your universe.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): The tomato and potato are both nightshades, a family of flowering plants. Taking advantage of this commonality, botanists have used the technique of grafting to produce a pomato plant. Its roots yield potatoes, while its vines grow cherry tomatoes. Now would be a good time for you to experiment with a metaphorically similar creation, Sagittarius. Can you think of how you might generate two useful influences from a single source?

What part of yourself are you scared of? Is it time to give that part a peace offering? Testify at Freewillastrology.com.

GO TO REALASTROLOGY.COM TO CHECK OUT ROB BREZSNY’S EXPANDED WEEKLY AUDIO HOROSCOPES AND DAILY TEXT-MESSAGE HOROSCOPES. THE AUDIO HOROSCOPES ARE ALSO AVAILABLE BY PHONE AT 1-877-873-4888 OR 1-900-950-7700

Savage Love {BY DAN SAVAGE}

About a year ago, I was pretending to read my boyfriend’s mind and jokingly said, “You want to put it in my ear.”

Since then, I have seen references to ear sex (aural sex?) everywhere! There’s even a holiday (“Take It in the Ear Day,” on Dec. 8), and I was reading a book just now in which the author mentions how much she hates getting come in her ear. So while I am honestly not trying to yuck someone’s yum, I do have two questions. First, is this really a thing?

And second, how does it work? I mean, I like it when my boyfriend kisses my ears, but I don’t think I’d get that hot from him putting his penis there. It just seems loud. Can you enlighten me?

AN UNDERSTANDING REQUESTED ABOUT LISTENERS

Ear sex is a thing. But we need to distinguish between auralism, AURAL, and an ear fetish.

People into auralism are sexually aroused by sounds — it could be a voice or music or sex noises. (Sex noises can arouse almost anyone who hears them, of course, so technically we’re all auralists.) An ear fetish, on the other hand, is a kind of partialism, i.e., a sexual interest in one part of the body (often parts not typically found in pants). A foot fetish is a partialism, for example, as is an ear fetish or an armpit fetish.

Most ear-fetish stuff — including the thousands of ear-fetish videos on YouTube — is about tugging, rubbing or licking someone’s ear and not about fucking someone in the ear or coming in someone’s ear canal.

Dicks don’t fit in ear canals, and blasting semen into someone’s ear could cause a nasty ear infection. So both are risky practices best avoided — but, hey, if PIE (penis in ear) sex is actually a thing, I invite any hardcore ear-kinksters out there reading this to write in and explain exactly how that works.

scenario where they boil over and I end up engaging in riskier behavior than I would have otherwise.

HORNY AND NERVOUS GUY’S ENDANGERING DEEDS

You’re not actually suicidal, right? I know you already said you weren’t, HANGED, but I want to double-check. Because fantasizing about killing yourself — for whatever reason — technically counts as suicidal ideation. If you or anyone else reading this is contemplating suicide, please reach out to someone you trust. Ask for help. Stick around. (Some resources: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 1-800-273-8255; the Trevor Project, 1-866-4887386; Trans Lifeline, 877-565-8860.)

OK, HANGED, I’m going to take you at your word: You love being alive and don’t actually want to kill yourself any more than a sane person into Master/slave role-play actually wants to own a human being or be enslaved. But while I agree that repressing sexual desires is a hopeless endeavor, HANGED, “can’t be repressed” isn’t the only factor we have to take into consideration as we contemplate acting on our sexual fantasies. There are two other important considerations (at least!): Can the act be performed consensually? Can the act be enjoyed with minimal risk of permanent harm?

Your kink can definitely be performed consensually, and there are ways to minimize the risks of harm — and I’m not talking about sticking your head only in an Easy-Bake Oven. I’m talking about finding a responsible/indulgent/ macabre partner who’s willing to indulge/ assist/monitor. Yours is a kink that can be explored only during supervised play, otherwise you run the risk of fucking up and accidentally hanging yourself. You can never do this solo. So if you don’t have a responsible and unflappable partner, HANGED, you’ll have to stick to your right hand and your imagination.

“DICKS DON’T FIT IN EAR CANALS.”

I’ve never admitted this to anyone: The idea of committing suicide turns me on sexually. I recognize how crazy that is, and I want to emphasize that I’m not suicidal. I’m not depressed, I love living, and despite this sexual impulse, I don’t want to kill myself. I’m turned on by the fantasy of hanging myself, but that’s not really how I want my life to end. (To be clear: Autoerotic asphyxiation gets a lot of press, but that’s not the situation here. Asphyxiation itself isn’t my kink, and other methods of committing suicide also turn me on.) My question is this: Given that I don’t want these fantasy scenarios to ever become reality, should I indulge the fantasy through healthy, safe play with a responsible partner or should I try to repress it and shut it down? I’m worried that if I indulge the fantasies through safe scenarios, I might reach a point where the safety precautions interfere with the thrill. On the other hand, I know that trying to repress sexual desires is a hopeless endeavor and trying to keep these fantasies in check might result in a

What have you always wanted to know about Pittsburgh?

“WHY DOES PITTSBURGH HAVE AN H IN IT?” “IS A PARKING-SPOT CHAIR LEGALLY BINDING?” “WHAT IS SLIPPY?” Mike Wysocki has the answers. (well...sorta)

Bi guy here, who’s way OK with the use of “fag” or “faggot” in the right context.

And what FAGS wrote in about last week — a boyfriend who wants to be called “faggot” while she talks negatively about his cock — is absolutely the right context. There’s an evolution in meaning taking place right now, Dan. These days, “fag” is less about sexual preference and more about sexual submission. A submissive man? Gay or straight? He’s a fag. I’ve been serviced by both hetero and homo faggots and have enjoyed myself, as have the fags who sucked my cock or did my housework. Go onto Tumblr and see for yourself. (Also: I have a sneaky suspicion that sparks would fly if FAGS raised the subject of cuckoldry with her boyfriend.)

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PATRIOT GAMES {BY STUART SHEPPARD}

I OFTEN WONDER if cities can have souls; if living in a certain place can affect how one thinks and acts. And if so, is one a Pittsburgher, say, before one is an American? In feudal societies this was certainly the case. We are all proud of our hometowns, but where should this pride end, and when does civic pride turn into civic paranoia?

Such questions came to mind this weekend with the release of the film Patriots Day. The docudrama depicts the events of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, and the subsequent hunt for its perpetrators that played out in the streets of Cambridge and Watertown, where I was living and working at the time.

As a Pittsburgh native who lived in New York City for a decade and in Boston for twice that, I had felt strangely at home in New York, but like a stranger in a strange land in Boston.

Something happened to Boston after 2001, after it won the first of its Super Bowls, and a few World Series. It’s something that didn’t happen to Pittsburgh when it experienced a similar string of championships in the 1970s; Boston changed and adopted an attitude. The famous New England disdain for outsiders evolved into a reflexive form of resentment. Just wearing a Pirates cap would get you snide comments just by walking into a sports bar, and boy, do the cops love to ticket cars with Steelers stickers.

{PHOTO COURTESY OF CBS FILMS}

A scene from Patriots Day

One perspective I had hoped the film would explore, but didn’t, was the imposition of the “shelter in place” mandate, when residents of Boston and the surrounding communities were not allowed to leave their homes during the manhunt for the second bomber. A shelter-in-place warning is normally used for radiological or chemical defense; what happened during this day was actually a “lockdown,” which is a very rare thing in America.

As stressful and exhausting as the day was for those of us who were locked down, when it was over, the local public reaction — specifically the overblown and self-adulatory chest-thumping — was unsettling. Although the film claims that that the crowds who stormed the streets in the aftermath of the bomber’s capture were cheering for the police, they actually were cheering for themselves. This is when Boston truly bared its soul.

It felt out of scale that a 19-year-old kid, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, shut down a large city for an entire day and was found, by accident, hiding in a boat in someone’s backyard. The ordeal that

WHEN DOES CIVIC PRIDE TURN INTO CIVIC PARANOIA? National pride and civic pride became inverted.

The name of the film, Patriots Day comes from the Massachusetts holiday of the same name celebrated on the third Monday of April. The Boston Marathon is also run on this date. If you live in Boston but are not from Boston, Patriots’ Day is probably one of the most annoying holidays much the same way Tom Brady is one of the most annoying football players in history to anyone not living in New England. The only thing you can do, as one of the characters says in the film, is watch the marathon, run in the marathon or go to the Red Sox game.

Once I did watch the marathon, standing near the finish line.

You have no idea how fast the runners go if you’ve never seen them up close. This has always been one of my happiest memories of Boston. But now I realize that I was standing very near where the bomb blasts occurred in 2013.

The founders of the Boston Marathon stressed the event’s connection with both America’s battle for liberty in the Revolutionary War and the ancient Greek battle of Marathon, in which Athens fought for liberty against the invading Persians.

started with a bombing was over, not with a bang but a whimper.

The celebration seemed false; the chants of “Boston Strong” seemed exploitive.

It brought to mind another time of civic upheaval in ancient Athens, about 60 years after the Battle of Marathon, when the leader Pericles delivered his famous Funeral Oration, in which he said, “These men have shown themselves valiant in action, and it would be enough, I think, for their glories to be proclaimed in action.”

We needed the dignity of a Pericles to heal. But what we got was a baseball player telling a stadium of roaring fans, “This is our fucking city.”

That day, the Penguins came to town and played the Bruins in a game rescheduled from the day of the bombing. The Pens wore “Boston 617” patches on their uniforms. The cameras showed a young man, about the same age as the bombers, wearing a Pens jersey and holding up a sign that read, “Steeltown Loves Beantown. Go America.” The players raised their sticks in solidarity. Finally, with those last two words, I truly felt proud.

INF O @ P G HC I T Y PA P E R. C OM

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 01.18/01.25.2017

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Riding Port Authority is now faster, simpler and easier than ever before.

SAVE MONEY WITH A CONNECTCARD Pay $2.50 per ride with a ConnectCard or $2.75 when you pay with cash.

We’ve made it simple

ONE ZONE No matter how far you travel, pay $2.50 per ride when you use a ConnectCard.

NO MORE PAPER TRANSFERS If you're paying with cash, you pay $2.75 each time you ride. But with a ConnectCard, you’ll pay $1.00. Simply load your card with stored cash value prior to riding, then tap it at the farebox on your connecting trip. When tapped within three hours of your initial tap, $1 will automatically be deducted from your card in order to pay for the transfer.

PAY AS YOU ENTER USING THE FRONT DOOR OF THE BUS Regardless of travel direction or time of day, you'll enter using the front door, pay your fare and then exit through the back door.

More details are available by calling Port Authority Customer Service at 412.442.2000 or by going to simple.portauthority.org for our Fact Sheet.