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EVENTS
Dungen
3.16 – 8pm SOUND SERIES: KID KOALA: NUFONIA MUST FALL *HYULNPL 4\ZPJ /HSS 6HRSHUK Presented with Carnegie Nexus, as part of the Strange Times series and Toonseum. Tickets $25/$20 members & students
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3.18 – 8pm The Warhol theater, Tickets $20/$15 members & students 3.19 – 2pm ACTIVIST PRINT: ARTISTS IN DIALOGUE The Warhol theater Presented in conjunction with the installation Activist Print with artists Paradise Gray, Alisha B. Wormsley, and Bekezela Mguni. FREE; Registration suggested
Dungen are an eclectic Swedish quartet, who deftly blend elements of psychedelic rock, folk, free jazz, and ambient sounds. On this occasion, the band performs its SH[LZ[ HUK ÄYZ[ HSS PUZ[Y\TLU[HS HSI\T Häxan ¸;OL >P[JOš HZ [OL ZV\UK[YHJR [V 3V[[L Reiniger’s The Adventures of Prince Achmed ^OPJO PZ JVUZPKLYLK [V IL [OL VSKLZ[ Z\Y]P]PUN M\SS SLUN[O HUPTH[LK MLH[\YL ÄST
3.25 – 8pm SOUND SERIES: BANG ON A CAN: FIELD RECORDINGS *HYULNPL 3LJ[\YL /HSS 6HRSHUK Presented with Carnegie Nexus, as part of the Strange Times series and the Music on the Edge series of the University of Pittsburgh Department of Music, and the Pittsburgh Humanities Festival. Tickets $15/$12 members & students
Peter Evans Septet 4.11 – 8pm The Warhol theater, Tickets $15/$12 members & students
New York City-based trumpet player and improviser/composer Peter Evans is on tour supporting his latest release, Genesis, featuring his dynamic septet. Evans experiments at the borders of avant-garde jazz and new music, and is best known as a member of the subversive combo Mostly Other People Do the Killing.
3.26 – 8pm SOUND SERIES: ARDITTI QUARTET & ELLIOTT FISK The Warhol theater Co-presented with the Music on the Edge series of the University of Pittsburgh Department of Music FREE parking in The Warhol lot Tickets: advance $15/$10 students; door $20/$15 students; visit www.music.pitt.edu/tickets or call 412.624.7529
San Fermin: with special guests Low Roar
3.28 – 5-8pm TEACHER WORKSHOP: SYMBOLS AND NARRATIVE Tickets include museum admission, materials, and a private tour of Firelei Båez: Bloodlines. Tickets $30
5.11 – 8pm The Warhol entrance space, Tickets $15/$12 members & students: VIP $65
Co-presented with WYEP 91.3FM Brooklyn-based ensemble San Fermin, led by songwriter and composer Ellis LudwigLeone, is on tour supporting the group’s third studio album Belong. This latest release builds on the group’s 2013 debut, which NPR called “one of the year’s most ambitious, evocative, and moving records,� and its sophomore 2015 release Jackrabbit, which debuted at #8 on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart. The ambient Icelandic band Low Roar opens the show. NEWS
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The Andy Warhol Museum receives state arts funding support through a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency and The Heinz Endowments. Further support is provided by the Allegheny Regional Asset District.
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PARK RIDE SAVE With Port Authority’s new single zone system, you now save $1.25 each time you ride–about $50 with a monthly transit pass. That extra savings is more than enough to cover the cost of parking at South Hills Village Parking Garage for more than two full months. And, for a limited time, purchase an April 2017 monthly parking pass for only $11– that’s 50% off the regular price (we’re also waiving the new card fee.) Take advantage of this great deal now. The discounted April parking pass can be purchased at Port Authority’s Downtown Service Center, the South Hills Village Garage sales window, or online at portauthority.org.
SOUTH HILLS VILLAGE PARKING GARAGE
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03.15/03.22.2017 VOLUME 27 + ISSUE 11
[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 Music Writer MEG FAIR Interns JOHN HAMILTON, AMANI NEWTON, ALONA WILLIAMS
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GENERAL POLICIES: Contents copyrighted 2017 by Eagle Media Corp. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written permission of the publisher. The opinions expressed in Pittsburgh City Paper are those of the author and not necessarily of Eagle Media Corp. LETTER POLICY: Letters, faxes or e-mails must be signed and include town and daytime phone number for confirmation. We may edit for length and clarity. DISTRIBUTION: Pittsburgh City Paper is published weekly by Eagle Media Corp. and is available free of charge at select distribution locations. One copy per reader; copies of past issues may be purchased for $3.00 each, payable in advance to Pittsburgh City Paper. FIRST CLASS MAIL SUBSCRIPTIONS: Available for $175 per year, $95 per half year. No refunds. PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 650 Smithfield Street, Suite 2200 Pittsburgh, PA 15222 412.316.3342 FAX: 412.316.3388 E-MAIL info@pghcitypaper.com
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THIS WEEK
“WE DEFINED WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A GOOD NEIGHBOR.”
ONLINE
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Our daily talk show, Lynn Cullen Live, recently moved to the Point Park Center for Media Innovation. Listen online at www.pghcitypaper.com.
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{PHOTO COURTESY OF TAYLOR DAVIDSON}
Sloane Davidson (left) with participants in a Valentine’s Day Hello Neighbor event
HELLO, NEW NEIGHBORS
CITY PAPER
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in Pittsburgh are little understood by most Pittsburgh natives, probably due in part to the small number of foreignborn residents living in the region. According to 2015 U.S. Census figures, of the country’s 50 largest metro areas, the Pittsburgh region has the smallest proportion of foreign-born residents, at 3.6 percent. But even with such a small foreign-born population, Pittsburgh isn’t immune to xenophobia and anxieties about immigrants and refugees, thanks in part to the rhetoric of President Donald Trump. In the days following Trump’s Election Day victory, immigrants and refugees faced verbal and
physical attacks from many Trump supporters. Pittsburgh City Paper reported back in November 2016 that Abdulkadir Chirambo, a Somali refugee and head of the United Somali Bantu of Greater Pittsburgh, said his
New program will take on xenophobia by partnering Pittsburgh natives with foreign-born residents {BY RYAN DETO} son was bullied by other youth in Beechview two days after the election. They allegedly told Chirambo’s son, “You are going back to
your country; Trump is gonna put you in the garbage.” Chirambo and his son are U.S. citizens. In response to these kinds of incidents, one Pittsburgher knew something positive needed to be done. Sloane Davidson, of Highland Park, is creating a mentorship program that will pair immigrants and refugees with native-born Pittsburghers — sort of like a Big Brothers, Big Sisters program between native-born and foreignborn residents. Participants will spend at least six months together, and Davidson hopes to start with 10 to 30 families and individual pairs. Called Hello Neighbor, the program is a wink at perhaps Pittsburgh’s most famous CONTINUES ON PG. 08
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Live proud and say it out loud With the XFINITY X1 Voice Remote, simply say the name of what you want to see, and discover shows that reflect the life you live. Or, just say “LGBTQ” into the remote, and access a vast collection of film and TV that features stories curated especially for you.
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HELLO, NEW NEIGHBORS, CONTINUED FROM PG. 06
compassionate son, Fred Rogers. “It’s a good reminder that we are the town that brought Fred Rogers to this country,” says Davidson. “We defined what it means to be a good neighbor. When I see what is happening around the country, it makes me sad. But I could feel those emotions and not do anything about it, or I could focus on something hyper-local that could make a difference.” And Hello Neighbor is already gaining widespread support, even before its official launch. Pittsburgh City Councilors are behind the effort, and people from cities like Bakersfield, Calif., Wichita, Kan., and Chicago have already contacted Davidson asking for advice on how to start their own programs. Social scientists at Carnegie Mellon University feel the concept can provide valuable research opportunities. The program was even mentioned in the New York Times. Even in a time of growing fears toward immigrants and refugees, says Davidson, the excitement around Hello Neighbor shows there might be an equal or even stronger movement to embrace our new American neighbors. “We are really seeing an increase in the people that want to help,” Davidson says. “This work really requires high [contact]; you can’t just drop off a bag of coats. People want to do more; they want to build deeper relationships.” Davidson has been working with the refugee-resettlement agency at Northern Area Multi-Service Center (NAMS) since returning to Pittsburgh, her hometown, a few years ago. While there, she noticed some of the refugee families were living a fairly isolated existence. But Davidson believes that in order for refugees to successfully integrate into American life,
they need to spend time with native-born Americans. She says that for Hello Neighbor to work, people need to “sign on for a real commitment.” “That could create a real relationship between the two that could be invaluable,” says Davidson. “For the refugees, it could help them create a better life in America.” And Davidson says it can help nativeborn residents realize they might have more in common with immigrants than they think.
Kheir Mugwaneza, director of refugee resettlement at NAMS, is excited for Hello Neighbor to begin and believes it can provide needed help to refugee agencies. “I think it’s a good thing. I think it is something that we have been all doing, but not in a structured way,” says Mugwaneza. “It is exciting, we are lucky to be in a community that is very supportive.” When refugees arrive in the U.S., resettlement agencies like NAMS set them up with places to live, find them jobs, and
WHEN I SEE WHAT IS HAPPENING AROUND THE COUNTRY, IT MAKES ME SAD. BUT I COULD FEEL THOSE EMOTIONS AND NOT DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT, OR I COULD FOCUS ON SOMETHING HYPER-LOCAL THAT COULD MAKE A DIFFERENCE.” “There are certain cultural barriers that can be broken if you actually get to know someone from a different culture,” she says. Last month, as a precursor to Hello Neighbor, Davidson held a Valentine’s Day craft party. Davidson thought “if only 10 people show up,” that would indicate there was no demand for the program. But more than 300 people came, including 75 refugees, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto and City Councilors Dan Gilman and Corey O’Connor. Hello Neighbor should launch by the end of March. Davidson is currently selffunding the program and soliciting help from foundations and private donors. “I am not letting a lack of funding stop me,” says Davidson. “I believe that launching it will provide a bigger draw for funders, since it is something I am actually doing and not something I just want to do.”
give them federal funding that amounts to about three months’ rent and food costs. Agencies also help them find Englishlanguage and assimilation classes. After 90 days, the assistance drops off significantly. “We can use as much support as we can [get],” says Mugwaneza. “This is an area where if we have [Hello Neighbor] in a more structured way, it would be very, very helpful.” Davidson believes Hello Neighbor can highlight cultural similarities by putting pairs of native-born residents and refugees in public. “Maybe no one has ever seen a group of 20 people in hijabs or Muslim attire at a Pirate game with 20 American friends,” says Davidson. “Think what kind of opening-up opportunity that can create.” Nichole Argo, a social-science researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, agrees. She says that, psychologically, it’s typical
for people in vulnerable situations to fear refugees and immigrants, since they perceive their livelihoods could be at risk from more competition. Argo says that in Western Pennsylvania, it’s easier for populations in hard-hit areas like Cambria and Armstrong counties to fear immigrants, since those areas suffer from high unemployment and opioid-abuse problems. This perception can be easily perpetuated by rhetoric from leaders like Trump. “For people that are unstable, once you start to say that this is OK to [fear immigrants], then people feel it’s easier to do it,” says Argo. On the flip side, however, Argo says that breaking through that perception is easier than many expect, since face-toface connections are more powerful than imagined fears. “Psychology shows such predispositions can go away relatively quickly,” says Argo. “When you meet a real person, those prejudices can drain away almost instantly.” Argo feels Hello Neighbor can be important in shaping norms, since norms are shaped by what we see on a day-today basis. “People are more likely to behave for what they see as the norm in their area,” says Argo. “We are very influenced by norms.” And Pittsburgh City Councilor Dan Gilman says establishing a new norm of friendship between native- and foreign-born Pittsburghers should be easy, given the city’s history. Pittsburgh’s immense growth in the first half of the 20th century (when it added 330,000 people during a 50-year span) was driven primarily by European immigrants from Germany, Poland, Ireland, Ukraine and Italy, as well as African Americans moving CONTINUES ON PG. 10
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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 03.15/03.22.2017
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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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HELLO, NEW NEIGHBORS, CONTINUED FROM PG. 08
in from the American South. This trend actually continues today, though in much smaller numbers. Pittsburgh’s metro area actually gained about 12,000 foreign-born residents from 2010-2015, a time when the area lost the same amount of native-born residents. Today’s foreign-born growth is primarily driven by Chinese, Indian, Bhutanese and Central and South American immigrants. Gilman recently introduced a package
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LANDMARKS PRESERVATION RESOURCE CENTER - A program of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation Foundation
Join us at the Landmarks Preservation Resource Center for ongoing workshops as we continue programming on architecture, history, design, urban planning, and other topics related to how cities function and historic preservation as a tool of community development.
TUESDAY, MARCH 21 • 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM WORKSHOP: TODAY’S BEST PERENNIALS FOR YOUR GARDEN MARTHA SWISS • Garden Writer & Designer Perennials are a mainstay of beautiful gardens. They return year after year, bloom reliably, and can offer other benefits, such as nectar and seeds for wildlife. Not all are created equal though. Come learn which perennials are the best ones for area gardens in terms of hardiness, flowering, deer resistance, and other attributes. Some might surprise you! New and improved varieties of old favorites will also be covered.
ABOUT THE PRESENTER: Martha Swiss is a garden writer, designer, and speaker. She is a regular contributor to Pennsylvania Gardener magazine and the publications editor for the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden. Her articles have also appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Fine Gardening. She is a graduate of Chatham University’s landscape design program and a Penn State master gardener.
THIS WORKSHOP IS FREE TO PHLF MEMBERS. NON-MEMBERS: $10. RSVPS ARE APPRECIATED: MARYLU@PHLF.ORG OR 412-471-5808 EXT. 527 FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT WWW.PHLF.ORG 744 REBECCA AVENUE
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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 03.15/03.22.2017
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to the city in search of better lives for themselves and their families,” Gilman wrote in an email to CP. “As a new generation of immigrants and refugees come from across the globe to Pittsburgh to learn, work, and live, the City must extend the same welcoming hand it did for previous generations.” Davidson believes Hello Neighbor’s concept can go beyond improving relations between native- and foreign-born residents.
“THERE ARE CERTAIN CULTURAL BARRIERS THAT CAN BE BROKEN IF YOU ACTUALLY GET TO KNOW SOMEONE FROM A DIFFERENT CULTURE.” of legislation, titled the City for All agenda, to accommodate this changing population. The motions and resolutions, which passed unanimously, encourage more cooperation between city government and native-born residents, and immigrants and refugees. Gilman is proud to see Hello Neighbor start in Pittsburgh and believes it fits perfectly with the idea he was highlighting with his legislation. “Pittsburgh was built on the backs of hardworking immigrants who first came
She thinks it could be applied to any vulnerable or misunderstood population. “There is a reason why ‘refugee’ is not in the name,” says Davidson. “We will be including immigrants, too. And I think this idea can apply for seniors, for veterans and for the homeless. The idea of us wanting to have stronger communities, in a world where we are overworked and our community ties are weaker than before, there is an incredibly opportunity to solve that.” RYA N D E TO@ P G HC I T Y PA P E R. C OM
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AGGRESSIVELY LEFT
ing to make fun,” Payne says, “but for us. it was like, ‘Wow, we’re really struggling and trying to get by.’ So for me … I just have to laugh when someone runs into my car when I’m going to my second payday-advance place.” In the wake of the 2008 market crash, he recalls, “You started seeing all these statistics of where the wealth was distributed. You started seeing what the median wage was. And I’m thinking to myself … I’m still not above that median income, and it feels like I’m barely hanging on. And you realize that 50 percent of other people are also barely hanging on. But instead of being honest, [we’re] shameful about it. And it’s just no fun that way.”
Columbus-based podcast Street Fight Radio brings its leftist comedy to Spirit {BY MARGARET WELSH} AFTER SIX YEARS of broadcasting, Colum-
bus, Ohio-based podcast Street Fight Radio recently enjoyed a considerable bump in popularity. In the past six months, its audience has grown from about 1,100 to around 5,000 weekly listeners. The timing — when polling finds approval for both major political parties at dismal lows — is not a coincidence. And cohosts Bryan Quinby and Brett Payne, who are avowed leftists and describe the show as the nation’s “No. 1 anarcho-comedy podcast,” have a pretty good idea why. “[We’re] aggressive,” says Quinby. “People want to hear people being mad at the government, because everbody’s mad at it. … And MSNBC, these liberals do it in such a dorky way.” Plus, he adds, “I like to think that we’re just cool. It’s just two cool Joes, yellin’ at the government.” This week, Quinby and Payne bring their live version of the show to Spirit, where they’ll appear with the hosts of fellow aggressive-leftist podcast Chapo Trap House. The Street Fight hosts will spend their part of the show discussing “smallbusiness tyrants”; as for the Chapo guys, “We just let ’em loose,” Quinby says. Street Fight’s growth has been helped by its association with Chapo Trap House, which debuted in March of last year, during the presidential election. Based mostly in New York City, the Chapo hosts delight in mocking and scandalizing conservatives and liberal Democrats alike, especially members of the establishment press. Proud originators and popularizers of the term
STREET FIGHT RADIO and CHAPO TRAP HOUSE LIVE 4 p.m. Sun., March 19. Spirit, 242 51st St., Lawrenceville. Free. 412-586-4441 or www.spiritpgh.com {PHOTO COURTESY OF ELEANOR KAUFMAN}
Street Fight Radio hosts Bryan Quinby (left) and Brett Payne
“dirtbag left,” they’re either (depending on who you read) “intolerant vulgarians” or “vulgar, brilliant demigods of the new progressive left.” (Apparently, everyone can agree that they’re vulgar). Despite being around longer, Street Fight, which started in 2011, has a much lower profile than Chapo, which has more than 11,000 subscribers paying $5 a month for extra content; Street Fight currently has 438. But, in many ways, Street Fight has the potential to appeal to a much wider base. The Street Fight format is reminiscent of the more freeform end of traditional talk radio. Early in their friendship, Payne and Quinby did standup together, and the chemistry and camarade-
rie between them is palpable, as they shift seamlessly from, for example, serious discussion of the heroin epidemic, to musings about microdosing Jeff Sessions, to candid stories about their own drug experiences. They’re also staunchly regional, and aim to be “as Ohioan as possible,” Payne says. “It makes people mad immediately.” On Street Fight, conversation is filtered through a radical-leftist lens. It’s also deeply informed by the day-to-day realities of poverty and paycheck-to-paycheck living. Here, things that are usually discussed from a soapbox, or with shades of obligatory shame, are simply realities, ready to be mined for laughs. “It’s part of being a comedian and try-
“IT’S JUST TWO COOL JOES, YELLIN’ AT THE GOVERNMENT.”
That’s why Payne and Quinby are forthcoming about things like drugs, past pettycriminal activity and other potentially embarrassing topics. They’re also both stay-at-home dads and talk often about their families. “I want to be as transparent as possible,” Quinby says. “I want people to see my journey, I want [them] to be able to see that people can change, people go through different phases in their lives.” Ultimately, Street Fight demonstrates that it’s possible to live — and maybe even spread — your politics without alienating everyone else. “There’s this guy who runs the door for our shows in Columbus, who, in 2011, wanted to drive to my house and beat me up, because I was fighting with him about the Ground Zero Mosque,” Quinby recalls with a laugh. “So I know that talking to people in a plain way is how you’re going to get them on your side.” I N F O@ P G H C I T Y PA P E R. C OM
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MARCH 20-26 PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER PRESENTS PITTSBURGH PIZZA WEEK, A WEEK THAT WILL BE ENTIRELY DEVOTED TO EVERYONE’S FAVORITE FOOD. FOR MORE INFO VISIT PGHPIZZAWEEK.COM
PARTICIPATING RESTAURANTS:
JUST ADDED! The Pizza Company NEWS
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THE CLIMATE The first hit is free. CHANGING {BY BILL O’DRISCOLL} Actually, so are all the others.
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including images cut from magazines, to scientific consensus on climate change: create a small mixed-media work reflecting Human activity is warming the planet, that vision. “When I just think of climate with potentially disastrous consequences. change, I feel like this big sort of weight is So why has public opinion lagged? Why coming down on me,” says Rosenthal. “It does climate still rank so low on most peo- doesn’t inspire action. … To me, at least, it’s much more hopeful to think about how we ple’s priority lists? Among those seeking solutions is Cre- can create the world that we want.” Workatives for Climate, a new group organized shoppers cut, arranged and pasted images by documentary filmmaker Kirsi Jansa of smiling kids, clear skies and healthy that held its second workshop this past wildlife. In a week when the new head of the Saturday. The 25 participants in the daylong session in East Liberty included visual U.S. EPA, Scott Pruitt, went on record denyartists, educators, a singer, an architect, ing the overwhelming scientific consensus an art therapist, a grad student in public that human activity is warming the earth, policy, a psychologist and a fish biologist. participants found it helpful to imagine Some guiding principles that emerged on not a disaster-movie future, but a bestgetting people engaged with climate: Sci- case scenario. That approach jibes with ence alone does not convince, or motivate. workshop leader Joylette Portlock’s call to Rather than being made to fear a world of transform climate change’s “have-tos” into “get-tos”: “giving peoheat and flood, people ple that ‘I want it,’ that need an attractive visense of enjoyment,” sion of the future to says Portlock, who embrace. And building heads the nonprofit community around Communitopia. climate action is more But that dynamic important than spuralso requires creating ring people to individcommunity around ual action. climate. “CommuniWorkshop particity-driven life is really pants included Mandi what you need for Lyon, an educator with {PHOTO BY BILL O’DRISCOLL} the Carnegie Museum Art by Creatives for Climate workshop joy and meaning in participants your life,” said panelof Natural History. “Teaching the science for 30 years did not ist Mary Beth Mannarino, a clinical psylead to more people caring about climate chologist. For people concerned about climate but change,” she says. One thing we need, Jansa emphasized in introductory remarks, is a afraid to bring it up in conversation, a sense new narrative about where we’ve been and of isolation can be debilitating. “We feel where we’re going as a society, a story that like each of us individually has to do everywill make confronting climate seem not thing,” said Portlock. Conversely, she noted, “People do actually do more when the comonly smart, but desirable. Panelists discussed employing art for munity around them is acting,” noted Portthis purpose. Architect Robert Ferry said lock. “That’s so powerful, that feeling that sources of renewable energy, now seen as you don’t have to do it by yourself.” As an educator with the Carnegie’s utilitarian, could be designed to be “sexy — something that people want to have.” Climate and Urban Systems Partnership, Ferry and his wife, Elizabeth Monoian, run Mandi Lyon has helped organize interacthe Pittsburgh-based Land Art Generator tive climate-themed displays at local comInitiative, whose four international design munity festivals, including the Three Rivcompetitions have produced 800 ideas, in- ers Arts Festival. She says surveys indicate cluding a giant “Energy Duck” feathered that after seeing such displays, people feel with solar panels and a Solar Hourglass more comfortable talking to each other that would power 1,000 homes. “We’re about climate. It’s just a matter of opening presenting a positive science fiction that the door. “Pittsburgh is already on board with we hope is not science fiction for long,” climate change as a problem caused by husaid Ferry. Participants also made art. Educator mans,” says Lyon. “They just want to know Ann Rosenthal asked them each to first what to do.” And the more we talk about it, the more write down a vision of life on earth 100 years from now, and then, using materials they’ll know.
FOR AT LEAST a generation, there’s been a
I N F O@ P G H C I T Y PA P E R. C OM
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MEDICAL
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News of the Weird
S E N D YO UR WE I R D N E WS TO W E I RD N E W S @ E ART HL I NK . N E T O R WWW. NE WS O F T HE WE I R D. C OM
{BY CHUCK SHEPHERD}
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In February, two teams of South Korean researchers announced cancer-fighting breakthroughs — by taking lessons from how two of medicine’s most vexing, destructive organisms (diarrhea-causing salmonella bacteria and the rabies virus) can access often-unconquerable cancer cells. In journal articles, biologist Jung-joon Min of Chonnam National University described how his team “weaponized” a cancer-fighting invader cell with salmonella to stir up morerobust immune responses, and nanoparticle expert Yu Seok Youn’s Sungkyunkwan University team coated immunizing cells with the rabies protein (since the rabies virus is remarkably successful at invading healthy cells) to reach brain tumors.
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Ex-Colombo family mobster and accused hitman “Tommy Shots” Gioeli, 64, recently filed a federal lawsuit over a 2013 injury at the Metropolitan Detention Center in New York City. He fell and broke a kneecap while playing pingpong (allegedly because of water on the floor), and while awaiting sentencing for conspiracy to commit murder. The New York Post also noted that the “portly” Gioeli, who was later sentenced to 18 years, was quite a sight at trial, carrying his “man purse” each day.
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French artist Abraham Poincheval told reporters in February that in his upcoming “performance,” he will entomb himself for a week in a limestone boulder at a Paris museum and then, at the conclusion, sit on a dozen bird eggs until they hatch — “an inner journey,” he said, “to find out what the world is.” (He apparently failed to learn that from previous efforts, such as the two weeks he spent inside a stuffed bear or his time on the Rhone River inside a giant corked bottle.) He told reporters the super-snug tomb has been thoroughly accessorized, providing for breathing, eating, heart monitor and emergency phone — except, they noted, nothing on exactly how toileting will be handled.
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A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration “bioacoustic research” team recently reported recording and listening to about 2 million underwater sounds made over a four-month period by various species of dolphins (“whistles,” echolocation “clicks,” and “burst pulses”) and can, they believe, distinguish the sounds to match them to a particular dolphin species (among the five most prevalent) — with 84 percent accuracy. The team built a computer algorithm to also make estimating dolphin populations much easier.
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In a first-person profile for the Chicago Tribune in February, marketing consultant Peter Bender, 28, recalled how he worked to maximize his knowledge of the products of company client Hanes — and not just the flagship Hanes underwear but its Playtex and Maidenform brands. In an “empathy” exercise, Bender wore bras for three days (a sports bra, an underwire and a lacy one) — fitted at size 34A (or “less than A,” he said). “These things are difficult,” he wrote on a company blog. “The lacy one,” especially, was “itchy.”
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“Fecal transplants” (replacing a sick person’s gut bacteria with those of a healthier person) are now almost routine treatments for patients with attacks of C. diff bacteria, but University of California researcher Chris Callewaert says the concept also works for people with stinky armpits. Testing identical twins (one odoriferous, the other not), the researcher, controlling for diet and other variables, “cured” the smelly one by swabbing his pit daily with the sweat of the better-smelling twin. The Callewaert team told a recent conference that they were working on a more “general” brew of bacteria that might help out anyone with sour armpits.
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Stephen Reed, the former mayor of Harrisburg, Pa., pleaded guilty on the eve of his January trial on corruption counts stemming from the approximately 10,000 items of “Wild West” and “Americana” artifacts worth around $8 million that he had bought with public funds during 28 years in office. He had an obsession with creating a local all-thingscowboy museum, and had purchased such items
as a stagecoach, stagecoach harnesses, a “Billy the Kid” wanted poster, a wagon wheel and a totem pole. Somehow, he explained, as he was leaving office after being voted out in 2009, the items he had purchased (theoretically, “on behalf of” of Harrisburg) had migrated into his personal belongings. A NEWS OF THE WEIRD CLASSIC (MAY 2013) Caribou Baby, a Brooklyn, N.Y., “ecofriendly maternity, baby and lifestyle store,” hosted gatherings at which parents exchanged tips on “elimination communication” — the weaning of infants without the benefit of diapers. Parents watch for cues, such as a certain “cry or grimace” that supposedly signals the need to hoist the tot onto a potty. Public appearances sometimes call for diapers, but can also be dealt with behind a tree, they say. Said one shocked parent, “I have absolutely been at parties and witnessed people putting their baby over the sink.” (Update: The maternity store is now called Wild Was Mama, and “elimination communication” meetings are not mentioned.)
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LOCAL
“WE’RE WRITING MUSIC THAT DOESN’T EXACTLY FIT INTO ONE OF THE PITTSBURGH SUBCATEGORIES.”
BEAT
{BY ALEX GORDON}
At 17, Montell Fish was having a rough time. He was smoking weed constantly, getting in trouble and regularly fighting with his family about his behavior. One night in 2014, he came home stoned and was caught by his stepdad. His stepdad took Fish to a Wednesday-night prayer service; it was a pivotal moment in his life and his career. Then a burgeoning R&B artist, Fish’s apathy and lack of direction showed in his music. His mixtape, My Friend’s Couch (possibly the most succinct weed-related title in music history), documented that period in his life. He was writing through the perspective of a rotating cast of characters he’d imagined while high on his friend’s couch. The album art is a couch in space. My Friend’s Couch is nowhere to be found these days because Fish has remade himself since then, dedicating both his life and his music to God and being a good Christian. He traces the transformation back to that Wednesday night in 2014. “The pastor spoke to me and said ‘God has a plan for your life,’” says Fish. “‘And the devil wants to make you just like the world.’” The change wasn’t overnight. Fish kept smoking, but that interaction with the pastor planted the seed that led to his overhaul. In early 2015, Fish stopped using drugs altogether and gave himself to God. Today, Fish uses his music to inspire and give hope to young people in their “couch phase.” His latest release, As We Walk Into Forever, is not subtle nor could it be confused for secular, but it’s also not preachy, treacly or any of the other negative connotations some listeners associate with “Christian music.” Start with “Dreams Don’t Sleep.” It’s a minimalist R&B track with a catchy hook, and up until Fish mentions waking up and saying his prayers, it sounds like it could easily make it on mainstream hip-hop radio. Predictably, some were surprised by the new Montell (“I miss that old Montell, that smoke-this-dope Montell,” Fish raps on “Lost in Eternal Light”). But Fish says that surprise helps him get his point across. “They’re like, ‘If God can change you, then I must have hope,’” says Fish. “They know how messed up I was.” Fish’s next EP, Bedroom Gospel, is out on April 4.
Montell Fish {PHOTO COURTESY OF MONTELL FISH}
OFF THE COUCH
SAME BUT DIFFERENT S
AME IS making music that doesn’t quite sound like anything else. Weird as Hell, its debut EP, is carefully crafted and detail oriented. It sounds like every song was a seed planted in a carefully tilled garden, and painstakingly watered, weeded and pruned for months until it blossomed into the finished product. Same is made up of vocalist and bassist Jesse Caggiano, guitarists Jake Stern and Tom Higgins, and drummer Jamie Gruzinski. The four spend a lot of time together, both as bandmates and as friends. Their chemistry shows in their ability to make each other laugh. During a recent conversation with Caggiano, Stern and Higgins at a coffee shop, they riffed about how much time they invest in the band. During the day, Higgins is busy with substitute teaching; Stern and Caggiano do illustration work; and Gruzinski works for Tree Pittsburgh, a local environmental nonprofit. On top of that, the band writes several times a week, plays shows, designs artwork, and still finds time just to hang out.
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{CP PHOTO BY SARAH WILSON}
{BY MEG FAIR}
PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 03.15/03.22.2017
Unalike: Same
“Maybe we’re downplaying how much time we put into this band,” Stern said with a chuckle. As evidenced in its music and album artwork, a tremendous amount of thought accompanies every step in the creative process. When planning the cover art for Weird as Hell, Caggiano envisioned a carefully composed photograph capturing
SAME
WITH YRS, HEARKEN, SWAMPWALK 7 p.m. Thu., March 23. James Street Gastropub, 422 Foreland St., North Side. $7. 412-904-3335 or jamesstreetgastropub.com
objects falling into paint. The band members then spent the next few weeks looking around their houses and exploring shops in Pittsburgh looking for the perfect objects to drop into the paint. “I found this small snow globe of Pittsburgh, so I smashed it and kept the little skyline,” said Higgins. “We dropped that in there, and it turned out nicely.”
The band spent hours dropping objects into paint at Heredwelling Studio. As a result, the band has a catalog of photos styled in the same way as the Weird cover for future use. The cassettes and CDs being sold through Head2Wall Records will feature some of this artwork. This patient and deliberate approach to art-making is also reflected in the band’s writing process. The foursome first started writing together in 2015, but didn’t release anything for a year. In that span, the band wrote nearly a dozen songs, only four of which ended up making the cut. “We feel, let’s write whatever we want, it doesn’t mean we have to play it,” Caggiano said. Adds Stern: “I can safely say we’re writing songs of a type that I’ve never been involved in writing. And that’s a really cool feeling.” The composition and arrangement process is all about experimentation. The finished songs rarely, if ever, sound the way they did when Caggiano brought the original idea to the rest of the group.
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“It would be really boring if it were just what I brought to practice,” said Caggiano, “They bring it to life and make it exciting.” This period of musical fermentation and editing is the longest part of the process. It could be easy for the group to get frustrated, but they try to keep it in perspective. “At a certain point, we are definitely over-analyzing,” Stern said. “[Our writing process] takes time, and you have to be really patient with how things evolve,” according to Caggiano. “We’ve been spinning our wheels in the mud for the past few weeks working on new material,” said Higgins, “But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. We purposefully move very slowly.” All of that patience pays off in the end. The four songs on Weird as Hell are cohesive, but each brings something unique to the table. The tracks are well produced without sounding tormented or over-done. Producer and engineer Matt Very’s mixing and mastering gives each riff, drum fill and solo its own showcase. Each element comes together to create a fine-tuned indie-rock earworm. The pace of these songs is slow, but driving and full of texture: Each harmony, overdubbed vocal movement and riff has been thoughtfully woven into the mix. The chorus of “Weird as Hell” epitomizes the group’s affinity for catchy hooks, before leading into a modest melodic solo that highlights Stern’s and Higgins’ guitar skills. Gruzinski’s drumming style is crisp and functional, providing an ideal rhythmic backbone to shimmery indie riffs, or to open, distorted guitar work, as on “Blurry Legs.” The catchy title track, “Weird as Hell,” balances well with the longer, twinkly voyage of “Badventures,” a mesmerizing six-anda-half-minute highlight that opens with feedback and ambience before building to a brooding song about quiet loneliness. Bottom line: Same doesn’t sound like anything else happening in Pittsburgh right now. “The fact we’re writing music that doesn’t exactly fit into one of the Pittsburgh subcategories means we get tossed on a lot of gigs that don’t exactly match our genre,” says Stern. “It’s ultimately a good thing, because we get to reach and meet a lot of new people.” The band also sets up shows, which often include a variety of bands working other genres. At its next gig, Same will be joined by grunge duo Hearken, YRS and Swampwalk, an experimental electronic-pop musician who uses a Game Boy as an instrument. In April, Same will embark on a nineday tour. Before and after that, the band will spend its time writing material for an album. Until then, Weird as Hell’s four tracks serve as a promising indicator of what’s to come.
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diesel
NEW RELEASES
C LU B | LO U N G E
{BY MEG FAIR}
UPCOMING CONCERTS 3/21| 7:00 PM | AA
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for tickets visit LIVEATDIESEL.COM or Dave’s Music Mine (southside) 1801 e. carson st | pittsburgh |412.481.8800
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“We all have little band crushes on each other, and any time I see a member of a Philly band around the city, I’m super excited to get to talk to them about what they’re up to,” adds Devora. This SXSW-spurred tour will be the longest the outfit has embarked on. Glass is excited to play lots of Beyoncé throughout the band’s travels, along with a collective agreement to listen to a lot of Solange, Mitski and PWR BTTM. Except for Scotto. She has other plans for the band. “We take turns picking the music,” she says, “and I think we all have plans to play the worst songs we can think of and see who snaps first.”
The latest album from experimental noise trio Skeletonized is a record intended for an old-school listen. It’s an experience that harkens to the days before the shuffle option on your iPod or even the “track skip” on a CD player. Skeletonized’s self-titled cassette lacks separated tracks or song names, and only about 16 minutes of the near-hour of sonic carnage is available digitally. Each side is a continuous voyage across a noisy, uneasy avant-garde landscape that twists, turns and lurches in unexpected ways. Skeletonized uses synths, samples, a saxophone and live drums to create soundscapes that alternate between grim grooves and open, pulsating movements, all of which has a primal, raw feel. It has the appearance of improvisation but feels much more guided, like carefully organized chaos. The A-side of the cassette has an ominous, apocalyptic feel to it, but don’t let that scare you. Its swampy energy is full of delightful synth work and catchy drum beats, even if the vibe is spooky. After an intro rife with samples of chimes and water splashing, the B-side quickly shifts to a more uptempo feel. There’s a twisted sense of urgency on this side that’s evident in its frantic carnival tone toward the middle. The record’s movement feels far more cosmic and open, with brighter synths arising from beneath the heavier drums during the arc toward the very end of the tape, before jutting into a fireworks-finale-esque explosion of fast drums and haywire synthesizer cacophony. It ultimately winds back down to the same eerie, bass-heavy synths and open rhythms introduced at the beginning of the tape.
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{PHOTO COURTESY OF MICHAEL JAMES MURRAY}
PHILADELPHIA’S ROCK SCENE seems to be a
hotbed of musical talent, and the fuzzy surf band Queen of Jeans is no exception. With washed-out riffs and reverb-soaked vocals, Queen of Jeans channels a classic sound with fun, self-aware lyrics. The band is vocalist/guitarist Miriam Devora, guitarist Matheson Glass, bassist Nina Scotto and drummer Patrick Wall. When Queen of Jeans hits the stage, there is a comfortable goofiness; it feels like watching a group of best friends jam in public. And that’s the reality for Queen of Jeans. The members live close to each other and spend time together outside of making music. It’s on this canvas of support and friendship that Devora writes lyrics that feel confessional and real, bouncing between articulate vulnerability and tonguein-cheek self-criticism. “Any free moment I have I’m usually playing guitar or singing something ridiculous to myself or Mattie [Glass]. So little melodies are constantly fluttering around, and when I catch a good one, I usually push at it until something weird or rather, so weird it’s true and relatable, pops out of my mouth,” explains Devora via email. This warmth and relatability glows across the six tracks on Queen of Jeans’ 2016 self-titled EP, especially on slowburning, longing tracks like “Pup” and “Won’t You.” “Dance (Get Off Your Ass)” has a much dancier feel, but the lyrics retain that diary vibe. In addition to this EP, the band released a slowed-down, surfed-out version of The Bangles’ “Walk Like an Egyptian” at the
PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 03.15/03.22.2017
Majestic Sound: Queen of Jeans
suggestion of Scotto. “[‘Walk Like an Egyptian’] is awesome, and Susanna Hoffs is a stunning, beautiful angel fish!” says Scotto. While Pittsburghers may be quick to point out how rude Philadelphia sports fans are, Queen of Jeans’ perspective represents a softer, gentler Philly. Queen of Jeans is touring down to SXSW for the first time, and the gig that excites them the most is the REC Philly showcase. “I love how [the music scene in Philadelphia] really feels like a community. Everyone’s always going to each other’s shows, or recommending each other for different opportunities, or forming side projects together,” says Scotto.
QUEEN OF JEANS
WITH THE LOPEZ, ALLEGRA, LATE 9 p.m. Sat., March 18. Gooski’s, 3117 Brereton St., Polish Hill. $5. 412-681-1658
B*tches Ball 6th Annual
HE
D LP U S CELEBRATE WORL
Pittsburgh Opera 2425 Liberty Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15222
+ ALL STARS
AY D Y SPA
Edition
Thursday, March 23, 2017 6 -10 pm (doors open at 5:30 pm)
VIP Tickets – $100 (includes stage side seating and one drink ticket) General Tickets – $40 ($50 at the door) • Drink Specials • Souvenir Glass* • Light Refreshments • Raffles and Giveaways • Celebrity Judges • Cat Walk • Crowning of Queen B*tchburgh 2017 (9pm)
Drag Competition Crowning Queen B*tchburgh 2017 Past 5 years Miss B*tchburgh competing for the title of Queen B*tchburgh
• Dancing (9-10pm)
Order tickets online at animalrescue.org/b-ball-tickets O Proceeds e benefit:
412-345-7300 • www.animalrescue.org
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The palace theatre coming events
CRITICS’ PICKS {PHOTO COURTESY OF CHRISTOPHER PATRICK ERNST}
Rockin’ Road to Dublin is the new sensation that combines the art of an Irish dance show, the power of a Rock-N-Roll concert, all with the finish of a Broadway theatrical production.
TUE • MARCH 21 • 7:30PM $30, $40, $45
Screaming Females W/LOCAL GUESTS
THE BRICKS A perennial rock favorite, led by founding band members Gerry Beckley and Dewey Bennell, who found their way to the top of the charts with their signature song A Horse with No Name.
SUN • MARCH 26 • 7PM $39, $49, $62
Celebrating the fusion of classical music with classic rock. Featuring works of Queen, Mozart, Journey, Handel, U2, Tchaikovsky, Heart, Beethoven, Styx, Foreigner, Rachmaninoff, Pink Floyd, Copland, The Who and more.
FRI • MARCH 31 • 8PM $45, $65, $99
& THE WORLD’S MOST DANGEROUS BAND
plus Vocalist half of entity formerly known as Ashford and Simpson)
Paul was David Letterman’s musical director and sidekick for 33 years. A Grammy Award-winning master of musical improv, he has been musical director at the White House; authored the best-selling memoir We’ll Be Here For the Rest of Our Lives; and co-wrote the Number One 80s dance hit It’s Raining Men!
SUN • APRIL 2 • 7:30PM
$39, $54, $69, $89, VIP Meet & Greet $130 (includes show ticket)
The Palace Theatre 724-836-8000
PalacePA
www.thepalacetheatre.org
* FREE PARKING FOR EVENING & WEEKEND SHOWS! * 22
They say you should never meet your heroes, but they say nothing about seeing your favorite childhood video games played on stage while a full band live-scores the speed run. If that’s not heroic, there are no heroes. Tonight, at Spirit, you’ll get a chance to see a seasoned gamer take on Mega Man 2, while the Athens, Ga.-based Bit Brigade performs its legendary score live on stage. If you don’t know Bit Brigade, but you’ve got a soft spot for videogame music of the 1980s and ’90s (they also do Zelda, Metroid and others), tonight might qualify as one of those can’t-miss affairs. Alex Gordon 8 p.m. 242 51st St., Lawrenceville. $5. 412-586-4441 or www.spiritpgh.com
[LOCALS ONLY] + THU., MARCH 16
PAUL SHAFFER
Valerie Simpson (
[MEGA MAN] + WED., MARCH 15
PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 03.15/03.22.2017
WPTS Radio continues its monthly local-music showcase at Spirit tonight, with a blend of genres sure to satiate all your rock, blues, punk and melodic-pop needs. Jack Swing’s bluesy grooves and soulful hooks pair well with the dancier vibes in his tracks like “A Reminder” and “Cloud Cover (A Space Disco).” Vocalist/guitarist Isaiah Ross writes solos and riffs sure to draw in any guitar nerd. Soft Girl reps a ’90s-inspired sound that artfully blends pop and grungy punk into irresistible earworms. Rounding things out is the Ty Segall-ish two-piece The Fortune Teller, which shares Soft Girl’s grunge influence, but adds gnarlier, stoner-rock fuzz. Meg Fair 7 p.m. 242 51st St., Lawrenceville. Free. 412-586-4441 or www.spiritpgh.com
[IRISH ROCK] + FRI., MARCH 17 It’s St. Patrick’s Day. The Bastard Bearded Irishmen are playing a show at the Rex Theater. To miss it would be goddamned
un-American. Well, at least goddamned un-Irish-American. Charlie Deitch 7 p.m. 1602 E. Carson St., South Side. $12-15. 412 381-6811 or www.rextheater.com
[INDIE ROCK] + SAT., MARCH 18 The Los Angeles-based Local Natives hit Stage AE tonight, touring behind their latest effort, Sunlit Youth. It’s an experimental, percussion-driven record that mixes traditional pop songwriting with more flamboyant synth elements. That’s been a reliable formula for success since the fivepiece broke onto the scene with its monster 2005 debut, Gorilla Manor. If you haven’t been keeping up, start with “Dark Days,” a cool, catchy and richly visual pop song in the vein of Miike Jack Swing Snow or Passion Pit. {PHOTO COURTESY OF Opening things up is JONATHAN LIGHTFOOT} the clever, dancey pop of Montreal-based Little Scream. Alona Williams 7 p.m. 400 North Shore Drive, North Side. $26. www.stageaepittsburgh.com
[ROCK] + WED., MARCH 22 Every single time some nerd at a major music blog laments the death of guitar rock, I’m overwhelmed with the desire to drop a duffel bag full of Screaming Females records on his foolish head. The rock trio rocks hard and riffs harder. Equipped with strong alto vocals and brilliant bass and guitar tones, Screamales shine with bangers like “Ripe,” “Empty Head” and “Criminal Image.” Joining Screamales at the Mr. Roboto Project is Cali’s City Mouse, another alto-led project that serves up anthems with a proto-pop-punk sheen. Indie rockers Old Game open, and The Lopez will DJ between sets. MF 7 p.m. 5106 Penn Ave., Bloomfield. $12-14. All ages. www.robotoproject.org
C O H E N
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TO SUBMIT A LISTING: HTTP://PGHCITYPAPER.COM/HAPPENINGS 412.316.3388 (FAX) + 412.316.3342 X165 (PHONE) {ALL LISTINGS MUST BE SUBMITTED BY 9 A.M. FRIDAY PRIOR TO PUBLICATION}
ROCK/POP THU 16 CLUB CAFE. Strand of Oaks w/ Twin Limb. South Side. 412-431-4950. JERGEL’S RHYTHM GRILLE. Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes. Warrendale. 724-799-8333. MR. SMALLS THEATER. Born Of Osiris, The New Reign Tour w/ Volumes, Oceans Ate Alaska, Within The Ruins & Fire From The Gods. Millvale. 412-821-4447.
FRI 17 CLUB CAFE. Beo Underground, School of Athens, Ray Lanich Band & Top Hat Black. South Side. 412-431-4950.
JERGEL’S RHYTHM GRILLE. Fathertime. Warrendale. 724-799-8333. THE PARK HOUSE. Tim Vitullo. Traditional Celtic folk songs in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day. North Side. 412-224-2273.
CLUB CAFE. Pat McGee Love Dumpster, Sun Hound & Charmaine Evonne. South Side. 412-431-4950. DOWNEY’S HOUSE. King’s Ransom. Robinson. 412-489-5631. FAIRWAYS LOUNGE. EZ Action. Braddock. 412-271-0506. JERGEL’S RHYTHM BAJA BAR AND GRILLE. Totally 80s. GRILL. NightLife Warrendale. Band. Fox Chapel. . w w w 724-799-8333. 412-963-0640. aper p ty ci h g p MR. SMALLS BALTIMORE HOUSE. .com THEATER. Katatonia 13 Saints w/ Mona Lisa w/ Caspian, Uncured. Smile. Pleasant Hills. Millvale. 412-821-4447. 412-653-3800. REX THEATER. theCAUSE. BLOOMFIELD BRIDGE TAVERN. South Side. 412-381-6811. Swingin Hammers, Ferdinand TWIN OAKS LOUNGE. Lenny The Bull, The Damn Garrison, Smith & The Instant Gators. Dead on the Streets. Bloomfield. White Oak. 412-678-3321. 412-682-8611. VENUS FLY TRAP. Werefolk, J. Trafford, The Childlike Empress, SOFT GIRL. Trans Women of Color Collective benefit. Tarentum. venusflytrappgh.weebly.com.
SAT 18
FULL LIST ONLINE
MONDAY, MARCH 27, 2017 7 PM • BYHAM THEATER
MP 3 MONDAY MONTELL FISH
TRUSTART S.ORG • BOX OFFICE AT THE ATER SQUARE 412-456-6666 • GROUPS 10+ TICKETS 412-471-6930
{PHOTO COURTESY OF AZARIAH JONES}
SUN 19 THE R BAR. Billy The Kid & the Regulators. Dormont. 412-942-0882.
TUE 21 CLUB CAFE. Matt Pryor & Dan Andriano w/ The Homeless Gospel Choir. South Side. 412-431-4950. DIESEL. Dope & Combichrist w/ Davey Suicide & September Mourning. South Side. 412-431-8800. HOWLERS. Dan Lippel, Aidan Plank, Dan Bruce, Mortis, Dave Bernabo. Bloomfield. 412-682-0320. MR. SMALLS THEATER. Senses Fail w/ Counterparts, Movements, Like Pacific. Millvale. 412-821-4447.
WED 22 MR. SMALLS THEATER. The Revivalists. Millvale. 412-821-4447.
DJS THU 16 MR. SMALLS THEATER. Centrifuge Thursdays. At the Funhouse. Millvale. 412-821-4447. PERLE CHAMPAGNE BAR. Bobby D Bachata. Downtown. 412-471-2058.
Each week, we post a song from a local artist online. This week, it’s a slick, soulful R&B track called “Dreams Don’t Sleep,” from Montell Fish. If you’re squeamish about openly religious lyricism, you might want to pass on Fish, but you’d be doing yourself a disservice. This dude makes some seriously smart, complicated and interesting post-modern music. Stream or download the track for free at FFW>>, the music blog at pghcitypaper.com.
FRI 17 ANDYS WINE BAR. DJ Malls Spins Vinyl. Downtown. 412-773-8884. CONTINUES ON PG. 24
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CONCERTS, CONTINUED FROM PG. 23
EARLY WARNINGS
REGGAE Old Crow Medicine Show
THU 16 PIRATA. The Flow Band. Downtown. 412-323-3000.
FRI 17 CAPRI PIZZA AND BAR. Bombo Claat w/ VYBZ Machine Intl Sound System. East Liberty. 412-362-1250.
SAT 18 BELVEDERE’S. 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. PERLE CHAMPAGNE BAR. DJ Tenova. Ladies night. Downtown. 412-471-2058. REMEDY. Push It! DJ Huck Finn, DJ Kelly Fasterchild. Lawrenceville. 412-781-6771. RIVERS CASINO. Artistree. North Side. 412-231-7777. ROWDY BUCK. Top 40 Dance. South Side. 412-431-2825.
Stage AE, 400 North Shore Drive, North Side [FRI., APRIL 28]
Kinky Friedman th
Club Café, 56 S. 12 St., South Side [TUE., MAY 09]
Old 97’s
Mr. Smalls, 400 Lincoln Ave., Millvale
JAZZ
WED 22 HEINZ HALL. Mash-Up Mix-Down feat. Tchaikovsky & Drake. Downtown. 412-392-4900.
BLUES FRI 17 565 LIVE. The Blues Orphans. Bellevue. 412-522-7556. MIKE’S NEW MOON SALOON. Jack of Diamonds. Gibsonia. 724-265-8188. MOONDOG’S. Cash Box Kings, Jimmy Adler Band. Blawnox. 412-828-2040. NIED’S HOTEL. The Monday Blues Revue. Lawrenceville. 412-781-9853.
SAT 18 NIED’S HOTEL. Shot O’ Soul w/ Cheryl Rinovato. Lawrenceville. 412-781-9853.
COUNTRY THU 16 ELWOOD’S PUB. The Fiddlers. Rural Ridge. 724-265-1181.
SAT 18 CARNEGIE LECTURE HALL. Rita Coolidge. Oakland. 412-622-3131.
CLASSICAL FRI 17 BOLERO! Heinz Hall, Downtown. 412-392-4900.
SAT 18
WED 22
HIP HOP/R&B
PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 03.15/03.22.2017
Old Crow Medicine Show
THE GOLDMARK. Pete Butta. Reggae & dancehall. Lawrenceville. 412-688-8820.
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.
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[TUE., MARCH 26]
SPEAL’S TAVERN. Ron & the RumpShakers. New Alexandria. 724-433-1322. TAVERN IN THE WALL. Strange Brew. Aspinwall. 412-782-6542.
TUE 21
WED 22 ALLEGHENY ELKS LODGE #339. Pittsburgh Banjo Club. Wednesdays. North Side. 412-321-1834. PARK HOUSE. Shelf Life String Band. North Side. 412-224-2273. WHEELFISH. Jason Born. Ross. 412-487-8909.
{PHOTO COURTESY OF LAURA E. PARTAIN}
BELVEDERE’S. Rihanna Ri Mix w/ DJ ADMC. Lawrenceville. 412-687-2555. BUCKHEAD SALOON. Silent DJ w/ Matt Gamble. Station Square. 412-232-3101. DOWNEY’S HOUSE. Mike Flaherty & Jack Puskar. Robinson. 412-489-5631. THE FLATS ON CARSON. Pete Butta. South Side. 412-586-7644. ONE 10 LOUNGE. DJ Goodnight, DJ Rojo. Downtown. 412-874-4582. ROWDY BUCK. Top 40 Dance. South Side. 412-431-2825. RUGGER’S PUB. 80s Night w/ DJ Connor. South Side. 412-381-1330.
FRI 17
ROCKS LANDING BAR & GRILLE. Tony Campbell & the Jazz Surgery. McKees Rocks. 412 - 857- 5809.
MON 20 HAMBONE’S. Ian Kane, Ronnie Weiss & Tom Boyce. Jazz Standards, showtunes & blues. Lawrenceville. 412-681-4318.
THU 16 JAMES STREET GASTROPUB & SPEAKEASY. Roger Humphries Jam Session. Ballroom. North Side. 412-904-3335. VALLOZZI’S PITTSBURGH. Eric Johnson. Downtown. 412-394-3400.
SUN 19
WED 22 RIVERS CLUB. Roger Barbour Band. Downtown. 412-391-5227.
FULL LIST ONLINE
www. per pa pghcitym .co
ANDORA RESTAURANT - FOX CHAPEL. Pianist Harry Cardillo & vocalist Charlie Sanders. Fox Chapel. 412-967-1900. JAMES STREET GASTROPUB & SPEAKEASY. RML Jazz. North Side. 412-370-9621.
SAT 18 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. PARLAY LOUNGE. Roger Barbour Band feat. Mary Ann Mangini. Washington. 724-222-7777.
ACOUSTIC THU 16
DOWNEY’S HOUSE. Donte Spinosi. Robinson. 412-489-5631.
BOLERO! Heinz Hall, Downtown. 412-392-4900.
SUN 19 BOLERO! Heinz Hall, Downtown. 412-392-4900. THE BRASS ROOTS IN CONCERT. Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall, Oakland. 216-440-0699.
WED 22 MAURA GOODWIN. First Lutheran Church, Downtown. 412-471-8125.
OTHER MUSIC THU 16 LINDEN GROVE. Karaoke. Castle Shannon. 412-882-8687. RIVERS CASINO. Rick Purcell & Shari Richards. North Side. 412-231-7777.
FRI 17
BACKSTAGE BAR AT THEATRE SQUARE. Peter King w/ Mark Perna. Downtown. 412-325-6766.
LINDEN GROVE. Uptown Rhythm & Brass. Castle Shannon. 412-882-8687. RIVERS CASINO. Mark Ferrari & No Bad Juju. North Side. 412-231-7777.
SUN 19
SAT 18
FRI 17
ELWOOD’S PUB. Barbary Wine. Rural Ridge. 724-265-1181. HAMBONE’S. Calliope Old Time Appalachian Jam. Lawrenceville. 412-681-4318.
MON 20 CLUB CAFE. In The Round. Feat. Chris Ayer, Adam Barnes, Andre Costello & Morgan Erina. South Side. 412-431-4950.
ANDY WARHOL MUSEUM. Sound Series: Dungen. North Side. 412-237-8300. RIVERS CASINO. Michael Christopher Trio. North Side. 412-231-7777.
TUE 21 PALACE THEATRE. Rockin Road to Dublin. Greensburg. 724-836-8000.
PAID ADVERTORIAL SPONSORED BY
What to do IN PITTSBURGH
15 - 21
WEDNESDAY 15 Galactic
REX THEATER South Side. 412-381-1681. With special guest Con Brio. Over 21 event. Tickets: greyareaprod.com. 8p.m.
FRIDAY 17 175 Riverdance
Steve Martin & Martin Short BENEDUM CENTER Downtown. 412-456-6666. Tickets: trustarts.org. Through Mar. 16.
THURSDAY 16 Sound Series: Kid Koala: Nufonia Must Fall
CARNEGIE MUSIC HALL OAKLAND. For tickets and more info visit warhol.org. 8p.m.
Dreamgirls BYHAM THEATER Downtown. 412-465-6666. Tickets: trustarts.org. Through Mar. 19.
Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes
NEWS
RIVERDANCE BENEDUM CENTER MARCH 17-19
JERGEL’S RHYTHM GRILLE Warrendale. 724-799-8333. Over 21 show. Tickets: ticketfly.com or 1-877-4-FLY-TIX. 8p.m.
BENEDUM CENTER Downtown. 412-456-6666. Tickets: trustarts.org. Through Mar. 19.
Ray Lanich Band & Top Hat Black
1-877-4-FLY-TIX. 8p.m.
Blue October CARNEGIE OF HOMESTEAD MUSIC HALL Munhall. 412-462-3444. With special guest Matthew Mayfield. All ages show. Tickets: ticketfly.com or 1-877-4-FLY-TIX. 8p.m.
PHOTOGRAPHER: ROB MCDOGALL
March
MONDAY 20
Pittsburgh Pizza Week Multiple locations. For locations and more info visit pghpizzaweek.com. Through Mar. 26.
CLUB CAFE South Side. 412-431-4950. Over 21 show. Tickets: ticketweb.com/ opusone. 10:30p.m.
SATURDAY 18
Sound Series: Dungen ANDY WARHOL MUSEUM North Side. For tickets and more info visit warhol.org. 8p.m.
Candlebox Acoustic THE OAKS THEATER Oakmont. 412-828-6322. With special guest The Delaneys.
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TUESDAY 21 Local Natives
All ages show. Tickets: ticketfly.com or 1-877-4-FLY-TIX. 8p.m.
STAGE AE North Side. With special guest Little Scream. All ages show. Tickets: ticketmaster.com or 1-800-745-3000. Doors open at 7p.m.
West End Blend JAMES STREET GASTROPUB & SPEAKEASY North Side. 412-904-3335. With special guest Voodoo Circuit. Over 21 show. Tickets: greyareaprod.com. 9p.m.
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ROCKWELL THEATRE AT
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Shaolin Warriors: The Legend Continues
PITTSBURGH PLAYHOUSE Oakland. Tickets: pittsburgh playhouse.com. Through Mar. 26.
BYHAM THEATER Downtown. 412-456-6666. Tickets: trustarts.org. 7p.m.
Senses Fail
Amorphis REX THEATER South Side. 412-381-1681. With special guests Swallow the Sun, Icarus Witch & Haunt for the Wretched. All ages show. Tickets: ticketfly.com or
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[DANCE]
SPEED READING
THEY ARE MEANT TO BE WORN BY PEOPLE
{BY STEVE SUCATO}
INFO@PGHCITYPAPER.COM
TEXTURE CONTEMPORARY BALLET presents VELOCITY 8 p.m. Fri., March 17; 8 p.m. Sat., March 18; and 2 p.m. Sun., March 19 ($20-30); children’s performance: 4 p.m. Sat., March 18 ($10 per family). New Hazlett Theater, 6 Allegheny Square East, North Side. 888-718-4253 or www.textureballet.org
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[ART REVIEW]
ANY WEAR SHE WANTS {BY LISSA BRENNAN}
Texture Contemporary Ballet {PHOTO COURTESY OF MARK SIMPSON}
Texture Contemporary Ballet closes its home season with Velocity, a program of new ballets by company members, March 17-19 at the New Hazlett Theater. Per usual, the production includes premieres by artistic director Alan Obuzor and associate artistic director Kelsey Bartman, beginning with Bartman’s “When a Fairytale Ends.” Set to music by Ludovico Einaudi, Dustin O’Halloran and others, the 22-minute ballet honors Bartman’s late grandmother. “It’s inspired by both who she was and touches on how my family coped with her loss,” says Bartman. Also from Bartman is the new eightminute solo “Is it so?” for dancer Brynn Vogel, set to music by Bon Iver. The ballet’s character is an amalgamation of the female half of several romantic couples from Bartman’s past works, revisiting her following the couple’s breakup. Obuzor’s “Together We Stand Before the Fall to Higher Ground,” set to music by Two Steps From Hell, continues his penchant for letting music drive his creativity. Says Obuzor of the 22-minute ballet: “I was enthralled by the grandness and fullness of their music. I used this as inspiration to create a fast-paced athletic piece that pushes the dancers to match its intensity and energy.” Former Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre trainee Alexandra Tiso brings some levity to the program with her new 20-minute ballet, “Cloudy With a Chance of Splash.” Danced to music by Leroy Anderson, Jacques Offenbach and others, the ballet in five parts for six dancers in rain boots with umbrellas is “silly, fun and will hopefully leave the audience feeling good,” says Tiso. For her first time choreographing for a Texture mainstage program, Point Park graduate Vogel turned to her own life for inspiration. The fifth-year company member’s “Whelm” is a 13-minute sock ballet (that is, a ballet danced in socks) about how people acclimate to new settings by taking on characteristics of those around them and vice versa. Performed to music by Jóhann Jóhannsson and Ôlafur Arnalds, the ballet follows a central character who becomes entrenched in the ways and personalities of a new group she has joined and finds it hard to break free from the group to pursue other dreams.
{PHOTO COURTESY OF BART OOMES, NO 6 STUDIOS}
A dress and collar from Iris van Herpen’s “Chemical Crows” collection (2008)
I
RIS VAN HERPEN: Transforming Fashion,
at the Carnegie Museum of Art’s Heinz Galleries through May 1, is a study in contradictions. Fantastical in imagining and mathematical in execution, this is an assemblage of dresses, three works from each of multiple collections, that waft, shimmer, undulate and tense; elements shiny, spiky, pleated and gathered, reflect, absorb, embrace and repel. In the decade since graduating from ArtEZ Institute of the Arts Arnhem and creating her own label, the Dutch designer has captured the devotion of women who continually push the boundaries of fashion and art themselves, like Beyoncé, Lady Gaga and Björk. Van Herpen’s original artistic passion was for dance, and that devotion remains visible in her design, which constantly focuses on how the movement
PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 03.15/03.22.2017
of the body is translated to the fabrics that contain it. This includes fabrics she’s created, as her pieces are frequently built from innovations perfected for a single collection, ranging from the reformation of hundreds of children’s umbrellas to 3-D-printed polymers.
IRIS VAN HERPEN: TRANSFORMING FASHION continues through May 1. Carnegie Museum of Art, 4400 Forbes Ave., Oakland. 412-622-3131 or www.cmoa.org
Your introduction is a trio of pieces from “Refinery Smoke,” evoking the ethereal transparency of vapor, floating waves of layer upon layer that cushion or smother;
it’s crafted not with the light delicacy of tulle or chiffon, but with woven metal gauze. The garments are soft, soothing; they proffer comfort and warmth. In doing so, they are vastly divergent from the majority of the show that still awaits you, a tender trap, the tasty treat before the steel snaps down. The works from “Mummification” pay honor and homage to the intricacy of Egyptian burial, but without its confinement; this is leather and chains enhancing the body and leaving it free, more Harley Davidson than Tutankhamun. Pieces from “Micro” explore the invisible organisms that are unacknowledged but ever-present upon the body, amplifying the too-smallto-be-seen to dwarf the host within. One frock, “Wilderness,” utilizes bird skulls and silicone feathers, cocooning the wearer
[BOOKS]
FRANK TALK
Author Thomas Frank
{BY BILL O’DRISCOLL}
INFO@ PGHC ITY PAP ER.CO M
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“Jessica Dickey addresses life, art, death, and love with wit and grace.”
MUSIC
— DC Metro Theater Arts
In March 2016, Thomas Frank published a book about U.S. politics in which the lone mention of the man who eight months later would be elected president was “Donald Trump seems outrageous.” Yet post-election, Frank’s Listen, Liberal looks prophetic. The book’s sharply made theme, that the Democratic elite has abandoned working people for Wall Street and the professional class, got it named one of The New York Times’ “Six Books to Help Understand Trump’s Win.” Frank is co-founder of The Baffler, author of the 2004 book What’s the Matter With Kansas? and a former columnist for The Wall Street Journal and Harper’s. He’s also a busy speaker. Following recent talks in Australia, Norway, Sweden and Denmark, he’s booked solid with U.S. dates into early April, starting with a March 20 appearance at Robert Morris University. CP caught up with Frank in transit, via email. In Listen, Liberal, he notes that while President George W. Bush’s cabinet was loaded with “hacks and cronies,” and President Obama’s with Ivy Leaguetrained experts, both offered similar neoliberal economic policies: free-trade, lightregulation regimes that boosted corporate profits but did little for the average person. What about Trump’s cabinet picks? “Bush wanted a ‘market based’ government, but what Trump is doing is something Republicans have only dreamed about for a long time: A government run totally by business executives,” Frank writes. “That we are finally trying out this dream of a total business government courtesy of angry working-class voters in the Midwest is an irony almost too toxic to swallow.” CP asked Frank why he favors trying to restore the Democratic Party’s populist economics, rather than scrapping it for a new progressive party. “The Democratic Party has a wholesome progressive tradition. It has largely been buried and forgotten, but it’s still there waiting to be animated again. Bernie Sanders’ run shows what is possible working within the party. “In a curious way, Donald Trump has also shown us what is possible. He was a complete amateur who faced off against the Bushes and the Clintons, two of the greatest political machines in the world. … Trump showed us that all the conventional poli-sci rules of elections can be smashed with a little resolve and a little cleverness.” A complete transcript of this interview is at www.pghcitypaper.com.
THE GUARD
LIFE IS SHORT. TOUCH THE ART.
BY Jessica Dickey DIRECTED BY Tracy Brigden
Use code CITYCITY to save $5 on single tickets
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DRISCOLL@PGHCITYPAPER.COM
THOMAS FRANK 7 p.m. Mon., March 20. Hopwood Hall, 6001 University Blvd., Robert Morris University campus, Moon Township. Free. www.sess.rmu.edu +
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within a flock of phoenixes; in another, another garment creates a forest, rich, lush, dense. Many works in the exhibit recall the angular, severe landscape and populace that H.R. Giger created and brought into the collective unconscious with the “Alien” films — pointed, seal-slick, glossy-wet black or reflectively bronze or silver, sharp as razors and as dangerous too. Alongside each troika of garments is a placard explaining the inspiration for the collection and the influences at play during its construction. It’s interesting background, two or three succinct paragraphs on the process and the collaborators that brought it to flower, but not essential to viewer interpretation; it informs without adjusting the experience. But the aspect of the supplemental displays that is perspective-altering is the photographs, indistinguishably styled, lit and shot, of the same garments that are in front of us, with one change: In the photos, the works are presented alone. Within the gallery space, we view all of these pieces adorning mannequins which are not quite identical but nearly so, a few subtle shifts between the curve of one lip and another, the eyebrow of one slightly higher. They are same height and same size, unwigged and practically genderless; they’re unassuming and innocuous and bring seemingly nothing to the table — until we see the images of these works of art without them. And we realize that what the mannequins provide is in fact massive, because they’re keeping us aware, subconsciously as may be, that these works are not meant to stand alone. They are meant to be worn by people. This understanding makes us examine what we regard to be the relationship between fashion and art — each one of us, in a personal and specific interpretation. Is a given piece less significant as art because it is additionally fashion? Once it qualifies as art, is it fashion still, or something more? Van Herpen is also the creator of works, that is, garments, that are much more wearable, no less artistic or architectural, than those here displayed. Is there a line between those and these? The majority of works visible within the gallery are impractical, not particularly functional, not-quite-wearable art. Having first seen these pieces resting on the backs and shoulders of humanoid forms, this viewer assumed the somewhat symbiotic relationship as a given. But viewing, in the photos, the possibility of these works as autonomous objects, one desires to see them both in three dimensions and alone, not as things that exist through their connection with us, or our likenesses.
412.431.CITY (2489) / CityTheatreCompany.org / South Side
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M C KEESPORT LITTLE THEATER PRESENTS...
Polish Joke
MARCH 17, 18, 19, 24, 25, 26, 2017
a comedy/drama by David Ives
Friday and Saturday performances at 8p.m.; Sunday matinees at 2p.m.
TICKETS ARE $15.00, $10.00 FOR STUDENTS - GROUP RATES AVAILABLE. HANDICAPPED ACCESSIBLE.
1614 COURSIN STREET • McKEESPORT • (412) 673-1100 FOR RESERVATIONS VISIT OUR WEBSITE AT WWW.MCKEESPORTLITTLETHEATER.COM
{PHOTO COURTESY OF KEN KERR}
From left: Hilary Caldwell, Joanna Lowe and Brett Sullivan Santry in Cup-A-Jo’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
T HE INT ER NAT IONAL S ENS AT IO N
ON SALE NOW!
APRIL 11 – 15, 2017 • BENEDUM CENTER
TRUSTARTS.ORG • BOX OFFICE AT THEATER SQUARE •412-456-6666 • GROUPS 10+ TICKETS 412-471-6930
[PLAY REVIEWS]
WOOLF CAGE {BY STUART SHEPPARD} PUTTING ACTORS on stage usually results
in them acting like they are on a stage — their vocalizations and movements scaled to their distance from the audience. What happens if the audience is not separated from the actors, but sits in the same room with them? And in a house, not a theater? It’s kind of like visiting a zoo without bars. And, depending on the animals, potentially dangerous.
WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? continues through March 25. Cup-A-Jo Productions in Point Breeze (address provided with ticket purchase). $20-25. 412-334-3126 or cupajo.woolf@gmail.com
Cup-A-Jo Productions and director Everett Lowe answer this question with a thrilling staging of Edward Albee’s 1962 play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? that is performed entirely in a living room, with the audience sharing the same carpet upon which drinks are spilled, bottles smashed, and bodies fall. George (Brett Sullivan Santry) and Martha (Joanna Lowe) — hosts for an evening of drinking and games after a college faculty party — are like great has-been actors who never were; who play their fantasy roles every weekend on the stage of their living room, with other couples as unsuspecting characters in supporting roles. Their games
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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 03.15/03.22.2017
— drunkenly imposed on guests — with names like “Humiliate the Host,” “Hump the Hostess,” “Get the Guests,” and “Bringing Up Baby,” are really the titles of their own twisted, delusional plays. Honey (Hilary Caldwell) and Nick (Tom Kolos), innocent newlyweds, play along naively. Lowe’s portrayal of Martha is powerful, and she amps up the sexy in her tight black dress to seduce the much younger Nick like a tiger batting around a mouse. (She could also take Elizabeth Taylor, who played the part in the 1966 film, in a cage fight.) Santry’s George is much less bloviated than most portrayals of this role, utilizing a cunning undertone to battle Martha, all the more effective in conversational versus stage voicing. Kolos gives the dumb-blond Nick just enough narcissism to make him bait for Martha, while Caldwell’s giggling Honey convinces us she’s never said no to a glass of brandy, and has never kept one down either. Both avoid the clichéd pitfalls of these roles. This production is daring and alive, like visiting a strange zoo filled with creatures who bite with their words, and make love with their claws. I N F O@ P G H C I T Y PA P E R. C OM
SWEET DREAM {BY TED HOOVER} THOSE INVOLVED with the 1981 Broadway musical Dreamgirls claimed they were shocked, shocked! that people thought it was about Berry Gordy and Diana Ross and
The Supremes. Composer Henry Krieger, lyricist and book-writer Tom Eyen, and director/choreographer Michael Bennett denied any connection, while admitting privately their denial was based on the fear of a Gordy lawsuit. In any case, they created one of the most entertaining musicals of the past 50 years, as Pittsburgh Musical Theater’s latest production proves.
DREAMGIRLS continues through Sun., March 19. Pittsburgh Musical Theater at the Byham Theater, 101 Sixth St., Downtown. $9-54. 412-456-6666 or www.pittsburghmusicals.com
It was Bennett’s desire to stage a highly cinematic show, with only cross-fades and jump-cuts via four enormous moving metal and Plexiglas towers instantly establishing the musical’s locales. Obviously, Pittsburgh Musical Theater lacks those million-dollar resources to stage this backstage story of a girl group (the Dreamettes), their rise to stardom and the personal cost celebrity brings. PMT’s set designer, Jeff Perri, has been very clever stretching a tiny budget to look like something a whole lot bigger and very nearly succeeds. Christopher Patrick and Tony Sirk
must be recuperating in a rest home after supplying the sheer volume of defining wigs and costumes, and musical director Brent Alexander and his orchestra are also probably dizzy and panting, having played through this huge score (Dreamgirls is almost entirely sung-through) with such energy and pace. Director/choreographer Bob Durkin is the man responsible for pulling all these elements into a cohesive whole. Because he can’t fill the stage with much in the way of a set, he wisely populates the space with exceptionally talented performers. Adrianna Cleveland has the unenviable task, as Effie, of singing that musicaltheater mountain “And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going”; Cleveland has no trouble navigating the terrain, and tops herself with the second-act solo “I Am Changing.” Delana Flowers and Anastasia Talley, playing Lorrell and Deena, are as equally outfitted with superb voices and get plenty of chances to unfurl them. Durkin hasn’t neglected the male side of the equation, especially with Monteze Freeland bringing his own powerful, gorgeous voice to the role of Curtis, Jason Shavers finding the complexity of Marty, and LaTrea Rembert stealing just about every scene he’s in as James “Thunder” Early.
COHEN & GRIGSBY TRUST PRESENTS SERIES
THE LEGEND CONTINUES
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[ART REVIEW]
” ’†——ž ™Â?Š Â—ÂŽÂ“ÂˆÂŠÂ˜Â˜Ć˝ ž”š ’š˜™ ˜”‘›Š Čž —Ž‰‰‘Š˜Ǥ † ˜Ž“Œ‘Š œ—”“Œ †“˜œŠ— —Š˜š‘™˜ Ž“ ‰Š†™Â?Ç„
UNSURE THINGS
Diane Samuels’ “Moby Dick� (detail)
{BY NATALIE SPANNER}
ALEXANDRA LOUTSION as Princess Turandot
THIAGO ARANCAM as Prince Calaf
MARIA LUIGIA BORSI as LiĂš
WEI WU as Timur
ÇŚ Č?Č Ć˝ Č?ČŁĆ˝ ČžČœĆž Č? ÇŚ Š“Š‰š’ Š“™Š— ÇŚ ŽˆÂ?Š™˜ ˜™†—™ †™ Č–ČœČ? ÇŚ Č&#x;ČœČ?Ç‚Č&#x;Č ČĄÇ‚ČĄČĄČĄČĄ ”— •Ž™™˜‡š—ŒÂ?Â”Â•ÂŠÂ—Â†Ç€Â”Â—ÂŒÇ Â™ÂšÂ—Â†Â“Â‰Â”Â™ UNDERSTAND EVERY WORD! Sung in Italian with English texts projected above the stage. Campaign by Creme Fraiche Design.
Tuesday Night Sponsor: Ambridge Regional Distribution & Manufacturing Center
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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 03.15/03.22.2017
Season Sponsor
Doubt, at SPACE gallery, initially seems designed to unsettle. No captions mark the 15 pieces of artwork. Nothing fits together in form or topical reference, other than the abstract theme “doubt.� An awkward, giant work in blue paper sprawls from the ceiling onto the floor, and you have no idea what to make of it. Down the hall is a room usually reserved for an introspective piece or short film; it seems to glow red. It’s all part of Diane Samuel’s “Scheherazade.� Eerie human chatter plays over a speaker; on a nearby table, Arabian Nights sits beside a magnifying glass, and an intricately designed paper tapestry hangs with golden trim and a hypnotic crimson center, a magic carpet. The effect is mystifying. Sometimes you just need a way in; for me, magic does it every time. A quick consultation with the docent revealed the huge blue-paper construction that stumped me as Samuel’s other piece, “Moby Dick.� A gallery handout reads “hand-transcription� and, sure enough, Samuels has hand-written the entirety of Melville’s novel on the blue paper in tiny cursive script, just as she had written Arabian Nights on the tapestry in what I had mistaken for golden trim. Every piece in curator Nadine Wasserman’s Doubt is more at second sight. Lenka Clayton’s photography in “Moons From Nextdoor� almost convinces as Earth’s moon, until the third lightbox reveals the baseball’s double-stitching. Mary Temple’s “We’re All Pink on the Inside� is a portrait series of female politicians. How high the tiny portraits sit on the page displays how much Temple trusts what each subject says in the quote written beneath. Abstraction is well represented. Temple’s “Terrible Swift Sword� is in pastels, with brushstrokes imitating the movement of a sword. Gina Occhiogrosso’s “This Could Be Good or Bad� depicts a type of cyclone, either pulling shards into the center or spiraling them out in explosion. Melinda McDaniel’s “Four Years� worth of plexiglass calendars is another favorite; the endless reasoning behind how we organize our lives creates doubt as well as hope for the future. As Wasserman’s essay notes, “Doubt opens the door to new ways of perceiving.� No matter where you come from, or how you find your way into the conversation, doubt is a healthy and often necessary place to begin. INFO@PGHCITYPAPER.COM
DOUBT continues through March 26. SPACE, 812 Liberty Ave., Downtown. 412-325-7723 or www.spacepittsburgh.org
Clicking “reload� makes the workday blogh.pghcitypaper.com go faster
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Steve Hackman, conductor • Jecorey “1200â€? Arthur, rapper Malia Katherine Civetz, India Carney, & Mario JosĂŠ, vocalists A performance of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 is combined with a dozen Drake songs — “Hold On, We’re Going Home,â€? “Hotline Blingâ€? and more are weaved throughout the work! Please note that while this concert features lyrics by Drake, he will not be performing at this event
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FOR THE WEEK OF
FreeEvent
03.16-03.23.17 Full events listed online at www.pghcitypaper.com
{ART BY R. SIKORYAK}
It’s a long way from Bazooka Joe Gum comics to Dante’s Inferno, or so you’d think. But Robert Sikoryak collapsed that distance — as well as the gulf between “Garfield” and Faustus, “Ziggy” and Candide, and Beavis and Butthead and Waiting for Godot — in his book Masterpiece Comics. Now the comics artist is back with Terms and Conditions (Drawn & Quarterly).
The new book is a full-text adaption of iTunes’ (possibly previously unread) “Terms and Conditions” agreement, each of its 94 pages an homage to an iconic comic — except now, the protagonist of each strip or sequence is Steve Jobs. Sikoryak’s turtlenecked, 5-o’clock-shadowed Jobs impersonates everyone from Archie Andrews, Calvin and the Incredible Hulk to figures from Marjane Satrapi and Peter Bagge. With the text incorporated as narration and dialogue, it’s a comics geek’s delight (complete with index of source material). On Fri., March 17, Sikoryak visits The ToonSeum for a free talk and book-signing co-presented with Copacetic Comics. Sikoryak, whose credits range from The New Yorker to MAD, was always partial to parody, pastiche and homage. “I never particularly liked the way I draw,” he says by phone from his home, in New York City. Terms fulfilled his desire to follow Masterpiece with “something incongruent” and for which he didn’t have to edit text. He broke the Apple agreement into 200word chunks, then looked for strips or sequences with characters he could Jobs-ify. While the juxtapositions of text and image are mostly random, often the text imparts a mood or even a narrative to the images, whether it’s Snoopy Jobs looking lonely while discussing “Family Sharing” or a Jobsian Dan Clowes nebbish explicating “Your Account.” The effect, says Sikoryak, is “a testament to the comics form.” “Our brain always works to make sense of the world,” he says. “And the world does not make any sense!”
{ART BY KIM LAUGHTON}
^ Thu., March 16: The Virtual Reality Museum
thursday 03.16 ART The Carnegie Museum of Art previews the role virtual reality will play in museums of the future at The Virtual Reality Museum, a free event with museum admission. Attendees will be first to experience the new dystopiaimagining VR exhibit Styles and Customs of the 2020s, and meet members of the artist collectives behind the work, Scatter x DIS. Guests who want to stay late will need a Third Thursday ticket to access artist demonstrations, open galleries, and the music of DJ duo Tracksploitation for glow-in-the-dark k dancing. Amani Newton 7 p.m. Exhibit continues through rough Sept. 4. 4400 Forbes Ave., Oakland. $11.95-34.95. 95. 412-622-3131 or www.cmoa.org w.cmoa.org
friday 03.17
BY BILL O’DRISCOLL
7 p.m. Fri., March 17 (6 p.m. reception). ToonSeum, 945 Liberty Ave., Downtown. Free. www.toonseum.org
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STAGE In 1966, composer Cy y Coleman, lyricist Dorothy Fields and book-writer ook-writer Neil Simon turned Nightss of Cabiria, Fellini’s classic film about a prostitute, rostitute, into Sweet Charity, a Broadway musical about a Manhattan taxi-dancer. cer. Directed and choreographed by Bob ob Fosse, Sweet Charity was a hit, with two timeless ime meles lesss tune ttunes, unes, “Big Spender” and “If If My Friends Could See Me Now.” Starting tonight, Point Park University’s Conservatory Theatre Company presents this jazz-inflected
musical in a new staging directed by Michael Rupert, a Broadway veteran with a Tony for playing love interest Oscar in the show’s 1986 Broadway revival. Bill O’Driscoll 8 p.m. Continues through March 26. 222 Craft Ave., Oakland. $10-24. 412-392-8000 or www.pittsburghplayhouse.com
DANCE Tickets are going fast for Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre’s collaboration with Dance Theatre of Harlem. Starting August Wilson Center tonight, join the two troupes at the Augu for an eight-show run celebrating diversity in div American dance. The will present two companies w programs, each alternating pro signature performances featuring signatur individual repertoires, as from the individua partnership on Swan Lake’s well as a partnershi Deux,” performed “Black Swan Pas de D free community nightly. A series of fr the performance events accompany th schedule. Look for a review in next week’s CP. AN N 8 p.m. Continues 980 Liberty Ave., through March 26. 9 $28-108. 412-456-6666 Downtown. $28www.pbt.org or www.pb .pbt.o t.o ^ Fri., March 17: Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre {PHOTO COURTESY OF DUANE RIEDER}
SUMMER INTERNS WANTED City Paper’s editorial team is seeking several interns for the summer. Please send résumé, cover letter and samples to the appropriate editor listed below by March 21, 2017. Each internship includes a small stipend. No calls, please.
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT INTERN
The position is focused on reporting and writing about local people, performances, artworks and events, in fields including but not limited to theater, visual art, literature, dance and comedy. Send a cover letter, résumé and three writing samples to arts editor Bill O’Driscoll, driscoll@pghcitypaper.com.
MULTIMEDIA INTERN
The multimedia intern will produce content for our digital platform at pghcitypaper.com. The right candidate must be capable of working in the field as well as in the office. Necessary skills include: recording and editing audio and video, writing and copy-editing, as well as a working knowledge of social media. Apply to editor Charlie Deitch, cdeitch@pghcitypaper.com.
MUSIC INTERN
The music intern will have a working knowledge of the local music scene and experience writing reviews, previewing shows and interviewing artists. Apply to editor Charlie Deitch, cdeitch@pghcitypaper.com.
NEWS INTERN
The news intern will pitch and write stories for both the print and online editions, as well as assist news reporters with research and factchecking. Basic writing and reporting experience required. Please send résumé, cover letter and samples to news editor Rebecca Addison, rnuttall@pghcitypaper.com.
PHOTO INTERN
We are looking for a student photojournalist with an artistic eye who can tell a story through images. Editorial work will include shooting assignments to supplement the paper’s news and arts coverage, both in print and online. Weekend availability is required. Send a résumé and a link to an online portfolio to art director Lisa Cunningham, lcunning@pghcitypaper.com.
{PHOTO COURTESY OF CARNEGIE SCIENCE CENTER}
^ Sat., March 18: SkyWatch
saturday 03.18 EXHIBIT Kick off the season with day one of Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens’ annual Spring Flower Show. The theme is “Enchanted Forest.” Wander from the Palm Court to the Serpentine Room and take in the pink hyacinths, massive mushrooms, vibrant azaleas, snapdragons, tulips and more. One neighborhood east, at Phipps Garden Center, stop by the annual Orchid Show, a one-day affair of the Orchid Society of Western Pennsylvania. Peruse gorgeous flowers, and purchase an orchid from vendors from all over the East Coast. AN Spring Flower Show: 9:30 a.m.5 p.m.; exhibit continues through April 16 (One Schenley Park, Oakland; $11.95-17.95, kids under 2 free; 412-622-6914 or www.phipps.conservatory.org). Orchid Show: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. (1059 Shady Ave., Shadyside; free, with donations accepted; 412-441-4442 or www.oswp.org)
SPORTS INTERN
STARGAZING Most events this St. Patrick’s weekend, you’d be wise to watch where you’re stepping. Tonight at Carnegie Science Center, though, {PHOTO COURTESY OF PAUL G. WIEGMAN} look up: SkyWatch, held on select ^ Sat., March 18: Spring Flower Show dates through May, continues. Rain or shine, take a virtual nightsky tour in the Henry Buhl Jr. Planetarium; given clear skies, use the rooftop observatory (pictured), with its telescope powerful enough to see Saturn’s rings. Tonight’s two SkyWatch sessions also include “stars over Dublin” info and Irish constellation trivia. BO 7 and 9 p.m. One Allegheny Ave., North Side. $4. www.carnegiesciencecenter.org
City Paper is looking for a sports intern to work with the editor to find and write stories about Pittsburgh sports that people don’t usually hear about, the stranger the better. How strange? Last year we wrote a story about underwater hockey. The ideal intern candidate will have a background in sports reporting or a solid background in news and feature writing but a deep knowledge and appreciation for sports. Email a resume, 4-6 writing samples and a letter detailing why you think you’re perfect for the gig to Editor Charlie Deitch, cdeitch@pghcitypaper.com.
CONTINUES ON PG. 34
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SHORT LIST, CONTINUED FROM PG. 33
^ Tue., March 21: Teng Biao
STAGE
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)
SUBMIT YOUR PITTSBURGH QUESTIONS AT PGHCITYPAPER.COM
For the past decade, professional entertainer, juggler and former world yo-yo champ Mark Hayward has lived in Pittsburgh, and lately he’s made a second home at Arcade Comedy Theater. Now Hayward — who’s toured internationally and twice guested on The Late Show With David Letterman — is moving back to his native Wisconsin. But first, it’s one more time (at least as a Pittsburgher) at Arcade, for tonight’s all-ages variety program titled Mark Hayward’s Super Awesome Yo-Yo Show. BO 8 p.m. 811 Liberty Ave., Downtown. $7-12. www.arcadecomedytheater.com
sunday 03.19 TALK Comic-book fans of all ages should stop by when acclaimed graphic novelist and cartoonist Gene Luen Yang visits Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures’ Words & Pictures series. The MacArthur “genius” grantee has written and drawn more than a dozen books, including current runs for Dark Horse Comics’ Avatar: The Last Airbender and DC’s Superman. But he’s best known for his 2006 book American Born Chinese, the first graphic novel to win the American Library Association’s Michael L. Printz Award. AN 2:30 p.m. Carnegie Lecture Hall, 4440 Forbes Ave., Oakland. $11. 412-622-8866 or www.pittsburghlectures.org
monday 03.20 TALK
Add us by snapcode or search by username PGHCITYPAPER 34
PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 03.15/03.22.2017
^ Sat., March 18: Mark Hayward
For those exploring America’s defining struggle with race, lately there’s no getting around Ta-Nehisi Coates. In his journalism for The Atlantic, and works like the National Book Award-winning Between the World and Me, the New York-based writer has made the case for slavery reparations and offered indispensable insights about the fraught prospects of black America; he’s also won a MacArthur “genius” grant and written 11 issues of Marvel Comics’ Black Panther series. Tonight, the Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series honors Coates as this year’s William Block Sr. Award winner with a free talk in the William Pitt Union ballroom. Arrive early: This one’s sure to be SRO. BO 8:30 p.m. 3959 Fifth Ave., Oakland. Free. www.pghwriterseries.wordpress.com
EVERYONE IS A CRITIC
LYNN CULLEN IS GOING BACK TO SCHOOL!
EVENT: Dan Savage’s Hump Film Festival at Spirit, in Lawrenceville CRITIC: Caitlin Dupont, 26, a graduate student from Squirrel Hill WHEN: Sat., March 11
I loved it, it was fantastic! I think I was expecting it to be a bit raunchier, actually. But it was more humor, I think, than I expected. It was just as accepting as I expected, which was really awesome. I heard about it from my friend Jamie; she listens to Dan Savage religiously and introduced me to it. She’s the one who bought the tickets for us. We really liked “It’s Complicated,” the one where they kept saying “their thing,” and there was a gorilla. ... Actually we didn’t feel [awkward] at all; we were with a good group of people, and the whole event was surrounded by acceptance. And also seeing how diverse the crowd was [felt] very inclusive and less embarrassing. AMANI NE WTO N
tuesday 03.21 TALK Lawyer and human-rights activist Teng Biao is part of China’s weiquan, or “rights defenders,” movement for those who work on cases related to the environment, religious freedom, and freedom of speech and the press. For this activity and others, he was banned from teaching, disbarred, jailed and tortured. Now living in exile in the U.S., he’s been a visiting Fellow at the law schools of Harvard and Yale, and is currently a visiting scholar at New York University and the Institute for Advanced Study. Tonight, he speaks and takes questions about life in China courtesy of City of Asylum. BO 8 p.m. Alphabet City, 40 W. North Ave., North Side. Free; tickets required at www.alphabetcity.org.
Lynn Cullen Live
wednesday 03.22
is now broadcasting daily from studios at Point Park University’s
WORDS The hero of Susan Perabo’s latest novel, The Fall of Lisa Bellow (Simon & Schuster), isn’t the title character. It’s a different girl, an innocent bystander who was there during the armed robbery when Lisa Bellow was abducted. The novel examines how violent crime can root itself even in the lives of witnesses, rupturing their foundations. Penguin Bookshop welcomes Carlisle, Pa.-based Perabo to discuss her latest work, answer questions and sign books. AN 6 p.m. 417 Beaver Road, Sewickley. Free. 412-741-3838 or www.penguinbookshop.com
Center for Media Innovation The show, presented by Pittsburgh City Paper in conjunction with Point Park University, airs daily at 10 a.m. at
www.pghcitypaper.com {PHOTO COURTESY OF POPPY PHOTOGRAPHY}
^ Wed., March 22: Chevy Stevens
WORDS Chevy Stevens’ 2010’s Still Missing arguably paved the way for publishers to greenlight women-authored, women-centered thrillers, when it received the International Thriller Writers Award for Best First Novel. You can meet the bestselling author tonight at Mystery Lovers Bookshop, when she discusses the forthcoming Never Let You Go (St. Martin’s Press). The novel tells the story of a woman in alternating timelines, describing her past abusive relationship and her present stability, threatened by her ex-husband’s release from prison. AN 7 p.m. 514 Allegheny River Blvd., Oakmont. Free. 412-828-4877 or www.mysterylovers.com
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TO THE EXTENT THAT THERE IS A PITTSBURGH-STYLE PIZZA, THIS IS IT
MUCHOS OPTIONS {BY REBECCA ADDISON} To say there’s a lot going on at Condado Taqueria would be an understatement. The new Mexican restaurant opening Downtown this week offers tacos, salsa, queso, guacamole and cocktails, with options spread across at least five menus. Condado is based in Columbus, Ohio; its new outpost takes over the spot at 10th and Liberty recently vacated by Tonic. In a statement, Condado owner Joe Kahn said that “we have been looking at locations in the Steel City for over a year.” The build-your-own taco menu is the highlight. There are 10 different proteins, including ghost-pepper-marinated steak and BBQ pulled jackfruit. There are tortilla options like Sweet Lucy (a soft flour and hard-corn combo with guac and queso spread between) and Peezler (same combo, but refried beans, guac and sour cream). Then choose from six toppings, three cheeses, four salsas and seven sauces, like the cilantro-lime aioli and Condado’s secret taco sauce. Too many choices? Condado also offers a menu with taco suggestions. There’s the Purple Haze Bowl, with tofu, rice, black beans, red cabbage, tomatoes and mango-habanero sauce; and Surf N’ Turf with queso fresco, rice, ghost-pepper steak, shrimp ceviche, lettuce, onions, roja salsa and dirty sauce. And the drinks menu has an extensive selection of cocktails — including, of course, margaritas. “A lot of people do tacos, but we try to offer a value that nobody else does,” says Condado manager Chris Mendoza. “We have a lot of options, so people can get what they want and they can drink what they want.” raddison@pghcitypaper.com 971 Liberty Ave., Downtown. 412-281-9111or www.condadotacos.com
the
FEED
You get soup, p, bread, a handmade e bowl to keep, dining g companions and a chance to help out Greater Pittsburgh burgh Community Food Bank and Just Harvest. It’s the 22nd annual Empty Bowls event. There’s also a silent auction, kids’ activities and entertainment. Advance tickets ($20, $10 kids) at www.justharvest. org; $25 at door. Two seatings for soup: 1:30-3:30 p.m. and 4-6 p.m. Sun., March 19. Rodef Shalom, 4905 Fifth Ave., Oakland.
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{CP PHOTO BY VANESSA SONG}
Florentine pizza: spinach, garlic, diced tomatoes, ricotta and feta cheese with a light marinara sauce
PIZZA NIGHT {BY ANGELIQUE BAMBERG + JASON ROTH}
O
NE NIGHT we motored out to
Mount Lebanon to dine at an Asian restaurant there, only to find it closed. So, we took the opportunity to drop in on Bado’s, a family-run pizza and ale house on Beverly Road. Established in 1984, Bado’s hasn’t changed much since then, but it’s not a total time capsule. The extensive menu has surely evolved over the years, and the beer selection most definitely reflects the microbrewing revolution of the past two decades. (We did wonder what one of Bado’s original barflies would make of the chocolate-peanut-butter stout on tap.) But the essentials remain: pizza, hoagies, pasta and beer in an unpretentious setting. Bado’s is pretty much the anti-gastropub. Bado’s signature pizza had a medium-thick crust and was relatively lightly
PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 03.15/03.22.2017
sauced. To the extent that there is a Pittsburgh style, this is it, with chewy dough predominating over crispy crust. This was an excellent example of the type, because
BADO’S PIZZA GRILL AND ALE HOUSE 307 Beverly Road, Mount Lebanon. 412-563-5300 HOURS: Mon.-Thu. 10 a.m.-9:30 p.m.; Fri. 11 a.m.-11:30 p.m.; Sat. 9 a.m.-11:30 p.m.; Sun. 9 a.m.-9:30 p.m. PRICES: Appetizers, soups, salads $4-12; sandwiches and burgers $7-13; pizza and calzones $8-30; pasta $11-16 LIQUOR: Full bar
there was sufficient crisp, and because the outer crust wasn’t so big that it amounted to being just bread. The sauce was well balanced, deep red from cooking and suggesting sweetness without being sugary.
Bado’s plays to the pizza aficionado. Aside from this “traditional” crust, other (round) pizzas are available with New York (thin and crispy) or Sicilian (deep-dish) crusts, in four sizes, and with a plethora of toppings. Customers can make their own combinations, or choose from a wide variety of “supreme” and “original gourmet” combinations. Our four-cut, bacon-cheddar pie featured chewy bacon and creamy sharpness, and the traditional pizza flavor wasn’t hidden by these non-traditionally Italian toppings. Yet another featured pie is baked in a square pan from a Sicilian recipe ascribed to owner Frank Badolato’s father, Leopold. As far as we could tell, the sauce was the same as on the regular pie, but here its hint of sweetness, combined with soft pieces of sweet sautéed onion, made for
an unbalanced result. The menu mentions that Leopold himself always used anchovies, and their intense salt and savor might bring that balance. But anchovies being controversial, Bado’s makes them optional. Our feeling is that if the pizza requires this ingredient to work, the concept should be re-thought. The starters are an array of fried things, including green beans and ravioli. We tried the wings in garlic-parmesan sauce. They were a big letdown. A pile of half wings, mostly undersized, included a couple of inedible wing tips, something we’ve never been served before. The surface of the chicken was pleasingly crisp, but the meat on the diminutive wingettes tended toward dry and tough. Meanwhile, the sauce pooled in a greasy puddle at the bottom of the dish. The variety of sandwiches — hoagies, deli-style, Pittsburgh-style, burgers — was dizzying. We finally settled on a tuna melt from the hoagie list. Unsurprisingly, it was on a hoagie roll; this could have worked, for the tuna salad was tasty, and the roll was pleasingly, though lightly, toasted. But there was barely enough mild provolone cheese to notice, while each bite contained plenty of juicy, crunchy iceberg lettuce and wan winter tomato. Ultimately, this was a pretty good tuna hoagie, but not a tuna melt. In addition to the pizza and bar food, Bado’s has a substantial pasta selection. In addition to a number of specialties ranging from lasagna to angel hair with mussels, there was a mix-and-match option with four shapes and half-a-dozen sauces. Since Bado’s prides itself on its meatballs, we went for the meatball casserole, with spaghetti and meatballs under melted provolone. Unfortunately, the whole was less than the sum of its parts. The spaghetti was not fully sauced, resulting in bites that were either dry or in need of borrowed marinara (the floe of cheese on top made stirring impractical). Worse, the pasta was mushy and overcooked, making even balanced bites hard to enjoy. A whole canned plum tomato was an oddity that might have added more in a better dish. The meatballs were finely textured and tentatively flavored. Bado’s mainstay — pizza — is solid, and it’s great to have a family-friendly restaurant where parents can indulge their connoisseurship of beer. Not every diner seeks trendy ingredients or hip “small plates.” Bado’s brand of ItalianAmerican menu might never really go out of style, but its execution did illuminate some reasons to be glad Italian dining has improved so much over the past 30 years. INFO@ PGHC ITY PAP ER.CO M
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REAL IRISH SODA BREAD
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{BY RYAN DETO} More than 30 million Americans claim Irish ancestry. Yet we celebrate that heritage by swilling green beer and eating corned beef and cabbage. Green beer is actually loathed by the Irish, while corned beef and cabbage is merely America’s attempt at Irish cuisine. I first experienced authentic Irish food at a pub in Dublin. After a 10-hour flight, all I wanted was Guinness. I had no idea what good Irish food was, so I ordered the stew. My expectations were low, but out came a rich stew with slow-cooked potatoes, carrots and lamb in a caramelcolored broth; alongside was brown soda bread, with ultra-yellow butter. The stew’s broth was heavenly and the bread, while it looked boring and heavy, was light with complex flavor. A traditional Irish stew is a great way to appreciate Irish cuisine, but it slow-cooks for hours and can take a few attempts to get right. Soda bread can be prepped and baked within an hour. It’s the easiest way to appreciate Irish food that Irish people actually like. Sláinte.
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INGREDIENTS • 2 cups whole wheat flour • ½ cup white flour • 1/8 cup rye flour • 1/8 cup steel-cut oats • ½ tsp. baking soda • ½ tsp. salt • 1-2 cups full-fat buttermilk • ½ tsp. caraway seeds • Butter for greasing and serving (Kerrygold is best)
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INSTRUCTIONS Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a baking sheet, set aside. In a large bowl, mix flours, oats, baking soda and salt. Make a well in center of the mixture. Pour in 1 cup buttermilk. Stir with a spoon from the center to outside in a spiral motion. The dough should be soft, not too wet. Add more buttermilk if dry, until dough forms easily. Turn the dough on a white-floured surface, and shape into a round about 3 inches thick (the less you knead it, the better.) Sprinkle and lightly press caraway seeds onto dough’s surface. Transfer dough to baking sheet and cut a 1-inch-deep cross in the top. Bake for 30-40 minutes. When done, a toothpick placed in the center should come out clean. Tapping the bottom of the loaf should produce a hollow sound, like playing the bodhrán, an Irish handheld drum.
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Hashtag to win a 70-inch HDTV!
PITTSBURGH PIZZA WEEK O {BY CITY PAPER STAFF / CP PHOTOS BY JOHN COLOMBO}
N THE SURFACE, pizza looks like a pretty easy thing to make. All you need
is a crust, some sauce, cheese and a few cured meats, right? But anyone who’s ever had bad pizza knows just how wrong that statement is. It takes time to master the art of pizza-making, and that art deserves a little celebrating from time to time. Pittsburgh City Paper agrees and that’s why it’s presenting its inaugural Pizza Week, March 20-26. CP partnered with some of the best pizza restaurants in the city to bring specially-crafted pies to the masses. I N F O@ P G H C I T Y PA P E R . C O M
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Show us how you’re enjoying Pittsburgh Pizza Week on Instagram by using the hashtag #pghpizzaweek. Don’t forget to follow @pghcitypaper! You’ll be automatically entered to win a 70-inch HDTV courtesy of RW McDonald & Sons. Hashtag contest ends March 27.
THE UPPER CRUST PIZZA 715 Dorseyville Road, Fox Chapel www.theuppercrustpgh.com
When you name your restaurant The Upper Crust Pizza, your pie had better be built on a crust that measures up to the lofty moniker. At this Fox Chapel pizzeria, in business since 2007, the hand-tossed crust is every bit as good as the name above the door implies. It’s brushed with a special house-made garlic butter before it’s baked. For Pizza Week, the shop is featuring a Chicken, Spinach and Feta pizza with white sauce, tomato and red onion. The Upper Crust has limited seating, but carryout is always available. Try not to eat the whole thing before you get it home.
PASTOLI’S PIZZA, PASTA AND PAISONS 1900 Murray Ave., Squirrel Hill www.pastolis.menu
The owners of Pastoli’s Pizza, Pasta and Paisons are huge fans of goat cheese, and say “we want to share it with our neighbors.” So for Pizza Week, they’re highlighting their Goat Cheese Pizza, with sun-dried tomatoes and grilled onions. The shop uses a traditional crust, homemade sauce and premium cheeses as the base for all of its pies. But one of the best attributes of Pastoli’s is the belief that the entire family should be able to enjoy a meal together. So Pastoli’s offers a gluten-free menu, a vegan menu and an allergen-friendly menu, so no one is ever left out.
CITY OVEN The Times Building, 336 Fourth Ave., Downtown www.cityoven.com
City Oven’s contribution to Pizza Week is both delicious and a little bit daring. The featured pie is the BBR — blueberry, bacon and ricotta. The pie consists of brown-sugar lemon ricotta, thick-cut peppered bacon, fire-roasted blueberries, and a lemon-basil and olive-oil drizzle. But the pizza at City Oven isn’t its only noteworthy accomplishment. “Pizza with a purpose” is the shop’s motto, and that purpose is to invest in career development and give their employees an environment in which to learn. CONTINUES ON PG. 40
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PITTSBURGH PIZZA WEEK, CONTINUED FROM PG. 39
MERCURIO’S 5523 Walnut St., Shadyside www.mercuriosgelatopizza.com
This pizzeria has been the proud purveyor of authentic Neapolitanstyle pizza since 2012. It strives to make sure its pies are a loyal homage to the pizza served in the Naples/Campania region of Italy. This week it’s highlighting the Pizza Roberto, with basil, grape tomatoes, house-made burrata cheese and extra-virgin olive oil. Owner and head pizzaiolo Michael Mercurio trained under renowned chef Roberto Caporuscio and learned the art of making this pie. Once the restaurant opened, Mercurio put the pizza on his menu as a tribute to his mentor.
DONTE’S PIZZERIA 6409 Brownsville Road, South Park www.dontespizzeria.com
Live it up. Do what you want. Have it your way. That’s the way Donte’s is celebrating Pizza Week. Plain slices are $1.99 (toppings are an extra 59 cents each per slice). You can have that slice with either red or white sauce, plus a wide array of toppings from the traditional (like sausage and pepperoni) to gourmet (like feta, steak and shrimp).
BAKD PIZZA CO. 6520 Steubenville Pike Road, Robinson www.bakdpizza.com
Open for slightly more than a year, Bakd is turning heads with its classic Roman-style pies. A thin crust is topped with house-made sauce and cheeses that are either locally sourced or imported directly from Italy. The featured Pizza Week pie, Pizza Atomica, is inspired by the owners’ own experiences in Italy, and is an homage to the country’s pizzaiolos [pizza makers]. The Atomica features traditional sauce, using San Marzano tomatoes, smoked mozzarella, fennel, sausage, Tuscan salami and red onions.
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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 03.15/03.22.2017
SLICE ON BROADWAY Three locations (see below) www.sliceonbroadway.com
Since 2010, Slice on Broadway’s three locations have had a pretty simple business strategy — skip the gimmicks and use only fresh ingredients. For Pizza Week, Slice on Broadway will feature “The Guido,” a pie with sausage, red onions and green and red peppers. Check this pizza out at one of three locations: 2128 Broadway Ave., Beechview; 108 E. Main St., Carnegie; and 115 Federal St., at PNC Park on the North Side.
NANCETTA’S RISTORANTE 1200 Old Freeport Road, Fox Chapel www.nancettasitalian.com
Nancetta’s is serious about its pizza. Chefs use only fresh ingredients, and the Caputo Flour for the crust is imported from Italy for a pie that tastes “like it came out Italy’s front door.” For Pizza Week, the shop is highlighting a Neapolitan-style, thin-crust pizza with fresh marinated figs, caramelized onions, goat cheese and fresh parmesan. The sweetness of the figs combined with the saltiness of the cheeses make for a pie that’s different and delicious. {PHOTO COURTESY OF NANCETTA’S RISTORANTE}
SPOONWOOD BREWING COMPANY 5981 Baptist Road, Bethel Park www.spoonwoodbrewing.com
The beer isn’t the only draw to this South Hills craft brewery. The wood-fired Neapolitan-style pizzas are also pretty tasty and serve as a nice complement to the craft brews. The brewery’s highlighted pizza for Pizza Week is a chicken pizza with Siracha marmalade, which is both sweet and savory with a spicy kick. {PHOTO COURTESY OF SPOONWOOD BREWING COMPANY}
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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: WHEN DOVES CRY BOOZY TEARS
{CP PHOTO BY KATHLEEN HAGERTY}
Tim Garso, of Smallman Galley, makes this month’s special, the Ace of Spades
[ON THE ROCKS]
DRINKING FOR A CAUSE Bar’s charity drinks program embraces Women’s History Month {BY CELINE ROBERTS}
Tres Rios 1719 E. Carson St., South Side DRINK: Picante Paloma INGREDIENTS: Blanco tequila, Guajillo chile, lime, grapefruit soda OUR TAKE: Lime is the first flavor to make its presence known, followed by the mellow sweetness of the tequila and finished with a low burn at the back of the palate. Refreshing and pleasant, this drink takes you straight into the spring sunshine.
VS.
MARCH IS National Women’s History Month. Last week, on International Women’s Day, women across the country participated in A Day Without Women protests to demonstrate how vital women are to our society and our economic growth. Bros at the bar reading this probably be like, “Ugh, but what about men? Where’s our special day?” Well, guess what, fellas? We’ve been making your booze, too. IS NOTHING SACRED?! Better get used to it because, as the saying goes, “the future is female.” And Smallman Galley’s bar program is running a March menu to demonstrate it. Each month since December, the bar
has featured a charity drink. One dollar from each cocktail purchased goes to a selected organization. In keeping with National Women’s History Month, this iteration of the menu features the Ace of Spades, a take on a pisco sour. The pisco is distilled by Macchu Pisco, a muchcelebrated company run by Peruvian sisters Melanie and Elizabeth “Lizzie” Asher. Melanie also serves as the distiller. Proceeds will benefit Pittsburgh’s Strong Women, Strong Girls, an organization that seeks to empower young women and girls from under-resourced communities through mentorship. Both Macchu Pisco and Pittsburgh’s Dreadnought Wines
have promised to match the donations. Moreover, all 13 wines on this month’s list come from women-owned vineyards or women winemakers. Bar manager Tim Garso compiled the list with help from some enthusiastic wine reps. One featured winemaker is Italy’s Arianna Occhipinti, who runs two separate labels and specializes in bio-dynamic and organic winemaking. She released her first wine at age 21. “There are really beautiful stories behind a lot of these wines,” says Garso. The bar at Smallman Galley intends to continue the donation program. “Very shortly after the election, we [bar staff] started talking about a way to incorporate the bar and use it as a vehicle for raising funds for groups that were either going to see a cut in funding, or an increased need for their services,” says Garso. Since December, through charity cocktails and an inauguration-week fundraiser, as well as personal tip donations from bartenders, Garso says the bar has raised “$4,293.87, give or take, based on staff’s recollection of cash tips.” Donations have gone to Planned Parenthood, International Rescue Committee, Bill Nunn Theater Outreach Program, ACLU, Sierra Club, Anti-Defamation League, and Strong Women, Strong Girls. Plans include sponsoring a youth baseball team and benefiting foster care. For Women’s History Month, Garso emphasizes that the menu is built first on excellent spirits and wines. “I hate when people use the word ‘female’ as some sort of qualifying adjective. ‘Oh, she’s a great female chef,’ or ‘You know, for having a female singer, that punk band still really rips!’ No, she’s just a great chef and they’re just a great band, no weird qualifier needed,” he says. “The last thing I or anyone else wants is to make anyone a gimmick.” C E L I N E @ P G H C I T Y PA P E R. C OM
This week on Sound Bite: City Paper explores The Ark of Taste, an archive of world’s endangered heritage foods. www.pghcitypaper.com
täko tä 214 Sixth St., Downtown DRINK: Vanilla Paloma INGREDIENTS: Sauza Hornitos blanco tequila, pink peppercorn, vanilla, grapefruit, lime OUR TAKE: This cocktail is smooth as silk, with notes of vanilla that float over the citrus backbone. The tequila makes a slow entrance, just enough to know what you’re drinking is indeed alcoholic. A peppery, floral nose and just a touch of spice add depth.
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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 03.15/03.22.2017
One Bordeaux, One Scotch, One Beer Falernum, Maggie’s Farm Rum $35/750ml Early warning for booze nerds: Maggie’s Farm has resurrected falernum, a popular tiki-drink ingredient from Barbados. Falernum isn’t widely commercially produced and can be a bit of a pain to make at home. Snag a bottle to enjoy a punchy liqueur with all the clove, all-spice, lime and ginger flavors you can handle. RECOMMENDED BY CELINE ROBERTS
Maggie’s Farm Falernum will be available upon delivery of its special 99 percent UV-resistant bottle, projected to arrive at the end of March. Keep an eye out, as this will be gone fast.
TWICE-TOLD TALE {BY AL HOFF}
THE NATIVES, NOTABLY ONE GIGANTIC APE, ARE NOT PLEASED TO BE INVADED
The Disney Factory never rests, and its latest product is making big, flashy liveaction versions of its beloved animated films, themselves adapted from classic tales. We’ve had Cinderella and The Jungle Book, and now Beauty and the Beast gets the razzle-dazzle A-list do-over.
Beast (Dan Stevens) and Belle (Emma Watson)
In this version, free-thinking Belle (Emma Watson) rejects her boorish suitor (Luke Evans) and, through a bad deal her dad makes, winds up imprisoned in a gloomy castle with a moody, unlovable beast (Dan Stevens). For company, she has books and a lot of talking furniture and knickknacks. In time, Belle sees past the Beast’s dreadful visage — a puzzling CGIgenerated furry blankness that suggests bad taxidermy more than fearsome ugliness — and her love solves everything. It takes a full two hours to wind through this story that everybody already knows, and director Bill Condon (of the lamentable The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Parts 1 and 2) throws a lot on screen to distract us. At times, the special effects threaten to overwhelm not only the slim plot, but also the human actors, who get lost in caverns of artificially generated production design. There are costumes galore, a spooky Escher-like castle, and song-and-dance numbers. The big showstopper, “Be Our Guest,” puts a lot of cutlery in air, while tipping the top hat to Singin’ in the Rain and 1930s Busby Berkeley musicals. (But is a kaleidoscopic synchronized dance number as impressive when it is created, not by people, but by computer code?) The much-ballyhooed inclusion of a gay character in Beauty is sort of a shrug in 2017. The confirmation is a quick throwaway, and if chaste dancing between two men makes them gay, well … OK. On such thin evidence, one could make an argument for many of the other men in this movie who favor heeled footwear and flowery vestments (it’s like a Liberty of London fabric bomb went off) and burst out in show tunes. And not having seen the cartoon version, throughout most of this film, I mistakenly thought the constantly freaking-out candelabra and ornate clock were a same-sex couple. To recap: lady and beast, fine; lady and handsome prince, throw a big party; man and other man, sure; candelabra and clock, NO! In 3-D, in select theaters. Starts Fri., March 17
On Skull Island, Packard (Samuel L. Jackson) is still at war.
APOCALYPSE KONG {BY AL HOFF}
K
ONG: SKULL ISLAND is an OK
monster movie. Its special effects and various giant-beastie battles should hold the drive-in crowd. But fans of 1979’s Vietnam drama Apocalypse Now (and the 1899 Joseph Conrad novella Heart of Darkness that inspired it) will get an extra kick out of Jordan Vogt-Roberts’ retelling of the King Kong legend. There’s a quick prologue set in 1944, in which two pilots — one American, one Japanese — survive crash landings on a seemingly deserted island. But their attempts to kill each other stop when a 100-foot-tall ape appears. Flash ahead to 1973, and a businessman (John Goodman) is assembling a team to investigate a newly discovered island. The group includes: an Army assault-helicopter unit fresh from Saigon, led by the squarejawed Packard (Samuel L. Jackson); a photojournalist (Brie Larson); and a former British SAS dude named … ahem … Conrad (Tom Hiddleston), with expertise in “uncharted jungle terrain.” The entry to the island involves gorgeous aerial shots of helicopters flying over
mountainous jungle, while Black Sabbath blasts from speakers. The copters drop bombs that explode into fireballs among the lush greenery — and hey, it’s Vietnam all over again. And the natives, notably one gigantic ape, are not pleased to be invaded; Kong establishes dominance early by smashing the helicopters out of the sky.
KONG: SKULL ISLAND DIRECTED BY: Jordan Vogt-Roberts STARRING: Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, John C. Reilly In 3-D, in select theaters
The survivors wind up in two groups. One is headed by Jackson, who vows total hellfire annihilation on the ape. The other is lucky enough to find the island’s few humans, among them that American World War II pilot named … ahem … Marlow (John C. Reilly). He explains the island’s ecosystem, and how peace with Kong is vital in keeping even worse creatures at bay. What the film lacks in plot, tension, dialogue and fully realized characters, it makes up for with some fantastic visuals. Besides
the aforementioned helicopter assault, Vogt-Roberts treats viewers to extraordinary closeups deep into Kong’s soulful eyes, and the madness of Jackson’s flamefilled eyeballs; spectacular natural scenery (including digital Aurora Australis); and fantastical dreamlike scenes, such as an eerie march through giant-ape bone pile, partially obscured by green smoke. And the allusions to Apocalypse Now pile up. We go upriver in a boat while CCR’s “Run Through the Jungle” plays, and Packard abandons all reason. “This is one war we’re not gonna lose,” he says through clenched teeth, even citing a domino theory of giant monsters. Stretching out the Vietnam angle, most of the characters are lucky to get out of Skull Island alive, albeit humbled and bearing wounds from their aggressive meddling, and not taking the extra time to understand the locals. As for Kong, he’s booked by Warner Bros. to take on Godzilla — himself a literal and metaphorical manifestation of another war’s consequences — in 2020. Should be a real stew of man vs. monsters vs. military allegories.
AHOFF@PGHCITYPAPER.COM
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deeper themes beyond the love story; however oddball, it’s still the standard disbursement of joy, comfort, upheaval and pain. Mood’s slim plot means viewers will need to be sustained by the film’s visuals, little jokes and loopy tweeness, all of which Gondry has upended a full bag of. In French, with subtitles. March 17-20 and March 22-23. Row House Cinema (AH)
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FIRE AT SEA. The Italian island of Lampedusa has become a frontline in the ongoing migrant crisis, in which hundreds of thousands of African and Middle Eastern immigrants try to enter Europe. Gianfranco Rosi’s new film — an Oscar nominee for best documentary — looks at life there through the eyes of a 12-year-old boy. In Italian, with subtitles. 6:30 p.m. Wed., March 16, and 6:30 p.m. Thu., March 17. Regent Square
BRINGING UP BABY. Howard Hawks directed this 1938 screwball comedy in which Katherine Hepburn and Cray Grant (plus a leopard named Baby) spar their way to romance.
THE SENSE OF AN ENDING. Jim Broadbent stars in this drama about a man, haunted by his past, who re-evaluates his life after receiving a legacy. Ritesh Batra directs this adaptation of the Julian Barnes novel. Starts Fri., March 17
Wolves
WOLVES. Life seems to be working out for a high school basketball star, but his dad’s gambling problems are causing real trouble at home. Taylor John Smith, Michael Shannon and Carla Gugino star in Bart Freundlich’s new drama. 8:45 p.m. Wed., March 16, and 8:45 p.m. Thu., March 17. Regent Square
REPERTORY LABYRINTH. This cultish 1986 film from Muppet-master Jim Henson spins a fairytale-ish yarn about a teenage girl (Jennifer Connelly) who must navigate a strange world in order to rescue her baby brother from a goblin king (David Bowie). Featuring one of the Thin White Duke’s worst hair-dos ever. FINDING DAWN. Christine Welsh’s 2006 documentary looks at the disappearance or murder of an estimated 500 native Canadian women in a span of 30 years. The film screens as part of an ongoing series of social-justice films. 6:30 p.m. Thu., March. 16. Eddy Theater, Chatham campus, Shadyside. Free. www.justfilmspgh.org GROWING CITIES. Daniel Susman’s 2013 documentary looks at how people in cities are reclaiming space for urban farming, be it vacant lots, rooftop gardens or backyard chicken coops. The film will be followed by a discussion led by Phipps staff. The film continues a series of environmental films. KIND REWIND. After a store’s vidCP BE eotapes are erased, two buddies (Jack Black and Mos Def) take to making their own “sweded” versions of popular rentals such as Ghostbusters and Robocop — all to the wild embrace of the neighborhood, who start to pitch in with the productions. Michel Gondry’s 2008 comedy is a cheerful thumb in the eye of all those mega-budget, perfectly rendered but soulless films that clog up the multiplexes. For a Gondry film, Be Kind offers a relatively straightforward narrative. But it retains the director’s
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JULES AND JIM. François Truffaut’s immeasurably sad 1962 film is difficult to watch a second or third time, so painful is its fatal romanticism. Based on a novel, it’s still uniquely Truffaut, vivid with the breathless energy of the emerging New Wave, but in the end, as still and beautiful as a mountain lake. Is art the work of the artist, or a convergence of divine accidents? Midway through Jules and Jim, the “poisoned kiss” begs the question. And how could someone like Jeanne Moreau just happen? As Catherine, the center of the film’s love triangle between the eponymous friends, she’s literally cast in stone, an icon even before we see her in the flesh. Her unforgettable rendition of the lively-cum-bittersweet “Le Tourbillion” (“the whirlwind”) remains an elegy to an impossible dream, and its instrumental reprise at the end is devastating, the final knife in the heart. In French, with subtitles. 7 p.m. Tue., March 21. Tull Family Theater, 418 Walnut St., Sewickley. www. thetullfamilytheater.org (HK)
CP
Jules and Jim
playfulness and his unabashed love of cardboard sets, and it does toy with the line between real and not-so-real, if only regarding our relationship to pre-recorded films. Be Kind skitters along somewhere between sweet and slapstick-goofy, without ever being ha-ha funny; it’s an underdog story that requires the usual suspension of disbelief. What’s celebrated here is ingenuity and creativity in the face of no budget, and the shared community engendered when disparate people feel connected to entertainment. In the spirit of Be Kind Rewind, participants will screen their own “sweded” films for the first ever Pittsburgh Sweded Short Film Competition at the 7:30 p.m. Fri., March 17, show; cash prizes to be awarded. March 17-21 and March 23. Row House Cinema (Al Hoff) ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND. This 2004 movie is mildly entertaining until you catch on to its looping double helix of a plot, at which point it becomes somewhat trite and dull despite its deft playing. Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) is a dreary fellow who takes no risks, and Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet) is a self-absorbed flake. When their relationship ends, each partakes of Lacuna, a process that wipes your mind of memories that you want to forget. Joel’s procedure doesn’t go as well. This allows director Michel Gondry to really confuse everything by leaping from memory to memory inside Joel’s figuratively severed head, where authentic, imagined and alternative realities begin to battle for dominance. March 17-19 and March
PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 03.15/03.22.2017
Fire At Sea
21-23. Row House Cinema (Harry Kloman) THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP. In Michel Gondry’s quirky 2006 dramedy, Gael Garcia Bernal plays Stéphane, a young man who has a hard time distinguishing fantasy from reality. But Stéphane’s bigger problem is Stéphanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg), who shares both his accent aigu and his imagination. Their shy creative just-friendship doesn’t last long: When he falls in love with her, he falls hard. It won’t take you long to figure out this peripatetic movie: Life sucks, so sometimes the only way to survive is to invent a world of your own. At times, this is all somewhat entertaining, especially when Gondry lets Bernal be Bernal: The kid’s got talent, and spirit, and a magnetism that’s hard to characterize or explain. Science is best when Gondry slows down for those moments of intimacy that let us glimpse, in some realistic proportion, Stéphane’s suffering at this transitional moment in his life. In English, and French and Spanish, with subtitles. March 17-22. Row House Cinema (HK) MOOD INDIGO. Michel Gondry’s 2013 film is a quirky, whimsical romantic comedy, in which the story, however sweet, feels secondary to the endlessly unfolding visual tricks and fantastical sets. A wealthy Parisian who spends his days inventing fantastical things meets a woman at a party, and a whirlwind romance is born. But the bloom of love is imperiled by another, literal, bloom — a water lily has begun growing in her lung. Viewers aren’t obligated to ferret out
THE TRAVEL AGENT. Niccolò Bruna’s 2015 documentary profiles Lourdes, a Havana woman who has spent decades helping fellow Cubans secure passage to visit relatives in the United States. Now she finally has a chance to travel herself, to visit her sick mother in Florida. In Spanish, with subtitles. 7 p.m. Tue., March 21. Public Health G23, 130 DeSoto St., Oakland. www.ucis.pitt.edu/clas/node/432. Free (includes pizza) SLAPSHOT. Greatest movie ever about hockey. George Roy Hill’s rough-andtumble 1977 comedy follows the travails of a struggling Western Pennsylvania minor-league hockey team. The Charlestown Chiefs have got a cranky, profane coach (Paul Newman) and an on-ice assault known as the Hanson brothers. Set amid the gloomy winter of mid-1970s economic malaise, this film should resonate with today’s depressed audiences, yet still provide some much-needed belly laughs. 7:30 p.m. Wed., March 22. AMC Loews Waterfront. $5 (AH)
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IMMORTAL BELOVED. Bernard Rose directs this 1994 biographical drama about German composer Ludwig van Beethoven, and the women he loved. Gary Oldman and Isabella Rossellini star. 7 p.m. Thu., March 23. Melwood HERMITAGE REVILED. Margy Kinmonth’s 2004 documentary examines the history of Russia’s famed Hermitage art collection, among the world’s largest, on its 250th anniversary. Beautiful art in a beautiful building, once an imperial palace. 7 p.m. Thu., March 23. Tull Family Theater, 418 Walnut St., Sewickley. www.thetullfamilytheater.org
“WE HOPE TO BE A HOME FOR SOME OF THE MOST ELITE CLIMBERS IN PITTSBURGH.”
BRACKET BUSTER {BY CHARLIE DEITCH} A couple of weeks ago, in honor of the impending March Madness, I decided to do a bracket with my rankings of Pittsburgh’s sports broadcasters, and then pit them head-to-head until I came up with a winner. I thought it would be fun, and maybe people would have some goodnatured arguments over a list that was clearly plucked out of thin air and filled with my opinions for the sake of entertainment. A quick recap: Steelers and Panthers play-by-play man Bill Hillgrove won by beating Pirates announcer Greg Brown. But the one move that made everyone lose their collective minds was Brown, my three-seed, upsetting Penguins’ Hall of Fame broadcaster Mike Lange in the second round. The result: People hate me. My bracket created a mini social-media firestorm from civil differences of opinion (“Mike Lange takes the cake”), to the personal (“A COMPLETE MORON WOULD PICK GREG BROWN OVER MIKE LANGE”). Some people didn’t like the list: “I made this bracket the winner of my worst brackets of all time.”
{CP PHOTO BY AARON WARNICK}
ASCEND co-owner Paul Guarino
And then some people were really irate and couldn’t believe that I was allowed to perpetrate this fraud on the American public: “Is this a joke? Mike Lange losing in any situation is laughable. … Take this garb down.” “What a disgrace that mike lange lost. Disgrace.” And then there was my favorite: “Gotta be rigged somehow.” I thought it was crucial to my reputation to address some of these claims, and I can do it rather succinctly: Of course, it was rigged! I didn’t have a committee, nor did a computer generate the rankings. I didn’t bring these guys into my office and make them perform. I sat down at my desk as I always do, below my autographed photo of Henry Winkler, and I made the shit up! We even put a blank bracket online so you could make up your own. I did put thought into each seed and matchup, but it was all based on my own likes and opinions. For example, I’m a huge baseball fan, always have been. And while I support the Penguins, I’m just not a big hockey guy. Add that to the fact that for the sake of drama, you have to have a huge early-round upset in any bracket, and I chose that moment. I always knew Pittsburghers took their sports seriously, but I didn’t know they were just as passionate about the guys behind the mics.
ALL THE WAY UP {BY REBECCA ADDISON}
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IKE MANY climbers, Alex Bernstein vividly remembers when he first fell in love with the sport. Ten years ago, during a trip to San Francisco, he visited the Mission Cliffs climbing gym and quickly realized he wanted to bring a similar experience to Pittsburgh. This month, that dream will become a reality when ASCEND, a climbing gym and yoga studio, opens in the South Side. ASCEND is the brainchild of Bernstein and co-owners Aaron Gilmore and Paul Guarino. The trio, who met through Pittsburgh’s climbing community, hope their space will serve as a hub for other climbers and the larger community. “We want to be a community-driven, fitness-oriented, welcoming, safe place for everybody to come to have a good time and walk away with a smile on their face,” Bernstein says. From the time you enter the space, it’s clear this is more than your average climbing gym. Unlike other facilities that have a
more cavernous feel, ASCEND boasts panoramic windows with great views of the city. The facility offers both bouldering and top-rope stations across more than 10,000 square feet of walls ranging from 13- to 24feet tall, with an estimated 7,000 rainbowcolored holds.
ASCEND 2141 Mary St., South Side. www.ascendpgh.com
“Our goal was to design the place so a first-timer, no matter how fit or what age, can come here and have a full day’s worth of climbs to work on,” says Guarino. “We also hope to be a home for some of the most elite climbers in Pittsburgh. If it’s your first day, you could be on the same wall — climbing an easier route — right next to one of the strongest climbers in Pennsylvania. And that’s how you learn: from
other climbers.” ASCEND also features cardio equipment, free weights, kettle bells and other cross-training tools. There’s free Wi-Fi, locker rooms with showers, a kitchenette with coffee and pre-packaged foods, and even a child-watch space, complete with its own mini climbing wall. “Maybe instead of putting in a six-hour day at a coffee shop, come here, get a cup of coffee, do a little work on your laptop and do some climbing,” says Gilmore. “Even if you’re not climbing, it’s still just a cool place to hang out.” Day passes are $16 and include one yoga class. Equipment rentals are available. There are also two monthly memberships: $60 for unlimited climbing and fitness equipment and $100 for unlimited yoga. “If you’re bored of just going to the gym and just lifting weights and doing reps,” says Guarino, “climbing is one of those things where you get a really full-body workout and you don’t even realize it.”
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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 03.15/03.22.2017
[THE CHEAP SEATS]
TOP OF THE ORDER {BY MIKE WYSOCKI} IN LESS THAN a month, we’ll be able to
spend a brisk spring evening watching the Pirates at PNC Park. As your eyes roam around the stadium, as they’re wont to do during the one or two boring moments of a baseball game, you always notice the retired jerseys of past players. Pirates like Honus Wagner, Ralph Kiner, Willie Stargell and Roberto Clemente: guys who were so good that nobody is ever again worthy of wearing that number. But something stands out among that group — not one of them is a pitcher. If you go by archaic stats, Wilbur Cooper is probably the best pitcher in Pirates history, but he pitched more than 100 years ago, and only to white guys whose dads fought in the Civil War. So who are the best starting pitchers of, say, the past 50 years? I, along with The Cheap Seats sabermetric team, invented a formula to find out. To qualify, the pitcher must have won 50 games. Gerrit Cole will reach that with his third win of the year. So we’re making an exception for him, or else there wouldn’t be anybody from the PNC Park era. Sorry Tom Gorzelanny, Zach Duke and Paul Maholm — none of you made the list. Three old-school stats (wins, earned run average and games started) were combined with three relatively new stats (walks and hits per innings pitched [WHIP], strikeout-to-walk ratio and strikeouts per nine innnings) and three sabermetric stats (adjusted ERA, fielding independent pitching [FiP], and wins against replacement), with a 10th category for postseason performance. The all-time rankings of the qualifying pitchers were tabulated (I did the math on a giant chalkboard, Good Will Hunting-style). I assigned 10 points for first on the list all the way down to one point for 10th. The numbers were crunched and re-crunched, and I’m now proud to present the 10 best starting pitchers of the Pirates’ past 50 years. If you wish to argue, a member of my stats team will be at the Shop’n Save in Carrick on Friday afternoon. 10. Rick Rhoden hit .238 with nine home runs and 75 RBI in his career. He also put together an 11-game hitting streak in 1984, and that’s still a major-league record. Rhoden could also pitch a little, too. He won 79 games for the Bucs in the 1970s and ’80s. As a bonus, he’s so good at golf that he’s also qualified for the U.S. Senior Open.
9. Jerry Reuss is one of two pitchers to win 200 games without ever winning 20 in a season. He was just remarkably steady for a long time. If anyone cares. Reuss won 61 games as a starter in a career that spanned from 1969-1990. Weirdly enough, he left the Buccos in 1978 and bounced around for 12 seasons before returning to Pittsburgh for four games in 1990. 8. Bruce Kison’s first year with the Pirates was 1971. He went 6-5 and took home a World Series ring. His last year as a Pirate was 1979. He went 13-7 and put a ring on it again. This guy knew exactly how to make an entrance and an exit. Kison nailed down 81 wins during his tenure and went 5-1 in the postseason. 7. Bob Walk won one more game as a Pirate than Kison did and pitched when it counted. Walk is forever remembered in Pittsburgh lore for tossing a three-hit shutout against the Braves in the 1992 NLCS to stave off elimination. And yes, that is the only instance the word “stave” has ever been used in modern journalism. 6. Jim Rooker is best known for his 300mile charity walk from Philadelphia’s crappy cookie-cutter stadium to Pittsburgh’s crappy cookie-cutter stadium. As an announcer, Rooker proclaimed that he would walk home if the Pirates blew a 10-0 lead against the Phillies. He wasn’t counting on Phillies shortstop Steve Jeltz to hit two home runs. After all, he hit only five in his career. Rooker is less known for winning 83 games as a Pirate from 1973-1980. 5. Gerrit Cole might not be in Pittsburgh much longer, so go see him while you can. Cole ranks high in FiP, BB/K and K/9. He’s pitched four seasons in Pittsburgh and has been on only one losing team. He’s the Pirates’ first legitimate ace in 25 years. Cole is also the only pitcher on this list who was born after The Simpsons went on the air. 4. Dock Ellis is one of those guys known only for one thing — the first admitted use of a drug that was not necessarily performance- enhancing. His LSD no-hitter in Hollywood is legendary. Ellis also once hit the first three Cincinnati Reds with beanballs; again, legendary. Dock won 96 games as a Pirate and started the 1971 All-Star game. 3. Steve Blass doesn’t rank high in a lot of stats except for wins and games started. But nobody else on this list or any team’s list has done what Blass did. He won Game 7 of the World Series on the road, against the defending champion Baltimore Orioles, by throwing a complete-game four-hitter.
burgh in the 1990s. He looked like he could’ve lived in Crafton. He had the best non-hockey mullet in Pittsburgh sports; Drabek could’ve worn stonewashed dad jeans when he pitched and it would’ve looked normal. The Texan racked up 92 wins and a Cy Young Award, all under Jim Leyland. He’s the last Pirate to win the award, and really nobody has come close since. 1. John Candelaria looked like he could have been a “Sweathog” on the 1970s TV show Welcome Back, Kotter; every one of his baseball cards looked like a mugshot. But the results are in, and it turns out that the Candy Man could and did. Candelaria was the 1970s. He was turned away by the Dodgers when he showed up to a tryout wearing a shirt with a picture of weed on it that said, “Try it, you’ll like it.” The {CP PHOTO BY CHARLIE DEITCH} Dodgers’ loss was the Pirates’ gain. Fifth on the List: Gerrit Cole The Candy Man tossed a no-no, won Blass is best known for “Steve Blass Dis- a World Series and 124 games for the Piease” after mysteriously losing the ability rates — the most in the post-Forbes Field to throw strikes. But 103 big-league wins era. He might not have been Wilbur Cooper and a Game 7 victory isn’t the worst dis- or even Bob Friend, and his jersey will never ease you can get. be retired, but here at the Cheap Seats, the 2. Doug Drabek was perfect for Pitts- Candy Man gets the respect he deserves. I N F O@ P G HC I T Y PA P E R. C OM
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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 April 4, 2017, until 2:00 P.M., local prevailing time for the following:
Pittsburgh Colfax K-8 Restroom Renovations
Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, PA) seeks Sr. HR System Solution Architect (multiple) to develop & implement new systems, solutions, features, & functionality w/respect to all enterprise HR technologies. Reqs: bach (or for equiv), in HR, Comp Apps, IS, Math, Eng (any), or rel field + 5 yrs exp supporting enterprise HR tech by systematically identifying issues w/in tech config of HR admin sys, determining root causes, & documenting benefits & challenges of solutions. Exp must incl: 2 yrs exp w/ Workday config for HCM & utilizing Workday reporting tools. Resumes to: ls2v@andrew.cmu.edu.
Fox Chapel Golf Club seeks Second Assistant Superintendent in Pittsburgh, PA to manage chemical applications on golf course & assist w/mgmt of daily best mgmt practices under supervision of golf course Superintendent. Must have PA Dept. of Agriculture Certified Commercial Pesticide Applicator License. Send resume & cvr ltr to: Jason Hurwitz, Fox Chapel Golf Club, 426 Fox Chapel Rd, Pittsburgh, PA 15238.
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President & CEO, World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh, PA. Lead & manage bus. affairs, admin. & financial management. Dev. strategic plans, programs & lead communications. Lead Council membership & resource dev. efforts, marketing, public relations & fundraising. Represent Council in public speaking, serve as a moderator in school & community programs, media spokesperson & host Council’s weekly radio program. Dev. & sustain critical partnerships, manage personnel & consultants. Promote & market Council’s work regionally & internationally. Prepare annual operating & capital budgets, statements of revenues & operating expenses to improve programs & reduce costs. Demonstrated understanding & ability to communicate on international & global affairs that impact economic & workforce dev., education & business growth. Proven achievements in fundraising, securing grants & working with corporate leaders, donors, foundations, gov’t officials & educators. Masters’ degree in Public Policy & Admin. or related & 5 yrs.’ exp. with dev. public affairs strategy; strategic planning; communication efforts & program dev.; leading & managing business & personnel matters. Occ.travel to conferences. Charles Stout, 436 Seventh Ave., Suite 2800, Pittsburgh, PA 15219. 48
PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 03.15/03.22.2017
Asbestos Abatement Prime Contract Project Manual and Drawings are available for purchase 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.
Smokers Wanted The University of Pittsburgh’s Alcohol and Smoking Research Laboratory is seeking participants for a three-part research project. 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. We are an equal rights and opportunity school district. Parent Hotline: 412-622-7920 www.pps.k12.pa.us
For more information, call (412) 624-8975 *Our laboratory is also seeking couples, where one or both people smoke.
Weekend appointments available. For more information, call (412) 648-2214
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 April 4, 2017, until 2:00 P.M., local prevailing time for the following:
Pittsburgh Langley K-8 Foundation Waterproofing & Classroom Renovations General, Plumbing, Mechanical, Electrical and Asbestos Primes Documents available: March 7, 2017 Pittsburgh Phillips K-5 Restroom, Lobby & Safety Renovations General, Plumbing, Mechanical, Electrical and Asbestos Primes Documents available: March 10, 2017 Project Manual and Drawings will be available for purchase on February 6, 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. We are an equal rights and opportunity school district. Parent Hotline: 412-622-7920 www.pps.k12.pa.us
CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? {BY BRENDAN EMMETT QUIGLEY / WWW.BRENDANEMMETTQUIGLEY.COM}
SUMMER INTERNS WANTED City Paper’s editorial team is seeking several interns for the summer. Please send résumé, cover letter and samples to the appropriate editor listed below by March 21, 2017. Each internship includes a small stipend. No calls, please.
ACROSS 1. ___ 7 (WikiLeaks dump of CIA surveillance) 6. Dancerchoreographer Lubovitch 9. Cheyenne’s TV mom 13. Dallas City Hall architect 14. Scrabble or Mah Jongg pieces 16. “I won” hand gesture 17. Washboard feature? 18. Steinbeck novel about surveillance agents? 20. Shithead 23. Sugar ending 24. Busch Stadium insignia 25. Lifting a piece of surveillance? 32. Lag behind 33. U. V.I.P. 34. ___ king 35. Flubs up 36. Fix a chewed up football field 38. Warm embraces 39. Egg holder 40. “Well done!” in the Holy See 41. Dollar rentals 42. Place where surveillance doesn’t work any more? 46. Historical period
47. Tear into pieces 48. Outlaw Kelly 49. Hides surveillance in a hamburger? 55. Very rare blood type 56. Closing sections 60. Dreamed up 61. Get to emotionally 62. Villa d’___, Tivoli 63. ID whose last 4 digits are used more often than the other 5 64. Took illegally
DOWN 1. Spinal Tap keyboardist ___ Savage 2. Mornings, briefly 3. Reuters rival 4. BrickHeadz company 5. Kind of hat for a conspiracy theorist 6. Of the cloth 7. Bonnaroo gear 8. Put back into the scrapbook 9. Tricky question 10. “Rawhide” star Jack 11. Treasure of the Sierra Madre? 12. NBA mem. 14. Composer Edvard 15. Tithing amounts 19. Its logo features a butterfly 20. Most on point
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21. Shakespearean address 22. Hard to find 26. “___ for Killing” (Daniel Easterman thriller) 27. Shocking result 28. Paid athlete 29. Get more rigid 30. Politician who said “a zebra does not change its spots” 31. Got at least a D36. Yacht races 37. Sunny pair? 38. “Whazzat?” 40. College officer 41. Distinct features 43. Any one of the “You Should Be Dancing” singers
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The position is focused on reporting and writing about local people, performances, artworks and events, in fields including but not limited to theater, visual art, literature, dance and comedy. Send a cover letter, résumé and three writing samples to arts editor Bill O’Driscoll, driscoll@pghcitypaper.com.
MULTIMEDIA INTERN
The multimedia intern will produce content for our digital platform at pghcitypaper.com. The right candidate must be capable of working in the field as well as in the office. Necessary skills include: recording and editing audio and video, writing and copy-editing, as well as a working knowledge of social media. Apply to editor Charlie Deitch, cdeitch@pghcitypaper.com.
MUSIC INTERN
The music intern will have a working knowledge of the local music scene and experience writing reviews, previewing shows and interviewing artists. Apply to editor Charlie Deitch, cdeitch@pghcitypaper.com.
NEWS INTERN
The news intern will pitch and write stories for both the print and online editions, as well as assist news reporters with research and factchecking. Basic writing and reporting experience required. Please send résumé, cover letter and samples to news editor Rebecca Addison, rnuttall@pghcitypaper.com.
PHOTO INTERN
We are looking for a student photojournalist with an artistic eye who can tell a story through images. Editorial work will include shooting assignments to supplement the paper’s news and arts coverage, both in print and online. Weekend availability is required. Send a résumé and a link to an online portfolio to art director Lisa Cunningham, lcunning@pghcitypaper.com.
44. Shaped like a ball 45. Trivial Pursuit piece 49. Conduct, as war 50. Model ___ de La Fressange 51. Expense split with your roommates 52. Google Analytics data 53. All tied up 54. Ruler’s measurement 57. Rap’s Run the Jewels, e.g. 58. Knee injury spot, briefly 59. “Nevertheless ___ persisted”
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City Paper is looking for a sports intern to work with the editor to find and write stories about Pittsburgh sports that people don’t usually hear about, the stranger the better. How strange? Last year we wrote a story about underwater hockey. The ideal intern candidate will have a background in sports reporting or a solid background in news and feature writing but a deep knowledge and appreciation for sports. Email a resume, 4-6 writing samples and a letter detailing why you think you’re perfect for the gig to Editor Charlie Deitch, cdeitch@pghcitypaper.com.
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FOR THE WEEK OF
Free Will Astrology
03.15-03.22
{BY ROB BREZSNY}
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Would you like some free healing that’s in alignment with cosmic rhythms? Try this experiment. Imagine that you’re planning to write your autobiography. Create an outline that has six chapters. Each of the first three chapters will be about a past experience that helped make you who you are. In each of the last three chapters, you will describe a desirable event that you want to create in the future. I also encourage you to come up with a boisterous title for your tale. Don’t settle for My Life So Far or The Story of My Journey. Make it idiosyncratic and colorful, perhaps even outlandish, like Piscean author Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): The more unselfish and compassionate you are in the coming weeks, the more likely it is you will get exactly what you need. Here are four ways that can be true: 1. If you’re kind to people, they will want to be kind to you in return. 2. Taking good care of others will bolster their ability to take good care of you. 3. If you’re less obsessed with I-me-mine, you will magically dissolve psychic blocks that have prevented certain folks from giving you all they are inclined to give you. 4. Attending to others’ healing will teach you valuable lessons in how to heal yourself — and how to get the healing you yearn for from others.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): I hope you will consider buying yourself some early birthday presents. The celebration is weeks away, but you need some prodding, instigative energy now. It’s crucial that you bring a dose of the starting-fresh spirit into the ripening projects you’re working on. Your mood might get overly
cautious and serious unless you infuse it with the spunk of an excited beginner. Of course only you know what gifts would provide you with the best impetus, but here are suggestions to stimulate your imagination: a young cactus; a jack-in-thebox; a rock with the word “sprout” written on it; a decorated marble egg; a fox mask; a Photoshopped image of you flying through the air like a superhero.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Many Geminis verbalize profusely and acrobatically. They enjoy turning their thoughts into speech, and love to keep social situations lively with the power of their agile tongues. Aquarians and Sagittarians may rival your tribe for the title of The Zodiac’s Best Bullshitters, but I think you’re in the top spot. Having heaped that praise on you, however, I must note that your words don’t always have as much influence as they have entertainment value. You sometimes impress people more than you impact them. But here’s the good
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news: In the coming weeks, that could change. I suspect your fluency will carry a lot of clout. Your communication skills could sway the course of local history.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Your world is more spacious than it has been in a long time. Congrats! I love the way you have been pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and into the wilder frontier. For your next trick, here’s my suggestion: Anticipate the parts of you that may be inclined to close down again when you don’t feel as brave and free as you do now. Then gently clamp open those very parts. If you calm your fears before they break out, maybe they won’t break out at all.
PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 03.15/03.22.2017
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
I like rowdy, extravagant longing as much as anyone. I enjoy being possessed by a heedless greed for too much of everything that feels rapturous: delectable food, mysterious sex, engrossing information, liberating intoxication and surprising conversations that keep me guessing and improvising for hours. But I am also a devotee of simple, sweet longing … pure, watchful, patient longing … open-hearted longing that brims with innocence and curiosity and is driven as much by the urge to bless as to be blessed. That’s the kind I recommend you explore and experiment with in the coming days.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
You know that forbidden fruit you’ve had your eyes on? Maybe it isn’t so forbidden any more. It could even be evolving toward a state where it will be both freely available and downright healthy for you to pluck. But there’s also a possibility that it’s simply a little less risky than it was before. And it may never become a fully viable option. So here’s my advice: Don’t grab and bite into that forbidden fruit yet. Keep monitoring the situation. Be especially attentive to the following questions: Do you crave the forbidden fruit because it would help you flee a dilemma you haven’t mustered the courage to escape from? Or because it would truly be good for you to partake of the forbidden fruit? I expect you will get more than your usual share of both sweetness and tartness in the coming days. Sometimes one or the other will be the predominant mode, but on occasion they will converge to deliver a complex brew of WOW!-meets-WTF! Imagine chunks of sour apples in your vanilla fudge-ripple ice cream. Given this state of affairs, there’s no good reason for you to be blandly kind or boringly polite. Use a saucy attitude to convey your thoughtfulness. Be as provocative as you are tender. Don’t just be nice — be impishly and subversively nice.
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“I want to gather your darkness in my hands, to cup it like water and drink.” So says Jane Hirshfield in her poem “To Drink.” I bet she was addressing a Scorpio. Does any other sign of the zodiac possess a sweet darkness that’s as delicious and gratifying as yours? Yes, it’s true that you also harbor an unappetizing pocket of darkness, just like everyone else. But that sweet kind — the ambrosial, enigmatic, exhilarating stuff — is not only safe to imbibe, but can also be downright healing. In the coming days, I hope you’ll share it generously with worthy recipients. Saturn has been in your sign steadily since September 2015, and will continue to be there until December 2017. Some traditional astrologers might say you are in a phase of downsizing and self-restraint. They’d encourage you to be extra strict and serious and dutiful. To them, the ringed planet is an exacting task-master. There are some grains of truth in this perspective, but I like to emphasize a different tack. I say that if you cooperate with the rigors of Saturn, you’ll be inspired to become more focused and decisive and disciplined as you shed any flighty or reckless tendencies you might have. Yes, Saturn can be adversarial if you ignore its commands to be faithful to your best dreams. But if you respond gamely, it will be your staunch ally.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
east liberty squirrel hill north hills
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
Born in the African nation of Burkina Faso, Malidoma Somé is a teacher who writes books and offers workshops to Westerners interested in the spiritual traditions of his tribe. In his native Dagaare language, his first name means “he who befriends the stranger/enemy.” I propose that we make you an honorary “Malidoma” for the next three weeks. It will be a favorable time to forge connections, broker truces and initiate collaborations with influences you have previous considered foreign or alien.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): EVERY relationship has problems. No exceptions. In the beginning, all may be calm and bright, but eventually cracks will appear. Here’s the corollary to that rule: EVERY partner is imperfect. Regardless of how cool, kind, attractive or smart they may seem in the early stages, they will eventually unveil their unique flaws and troubles. Does this mean that all togetherness is doomed? That it’s forever impossible to create satisfying unions? The answer is HELL, NO! — especially if you keep the following principles in mind: Choose a partner whose problems are: 1. interesting; 2. tolerable; 3. useful in prodding you to grow; 4. all of the above. What are the main dreams you want to accomplish by 2025? 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}
I went to Dark Odyssey Winter Fire, the big kink hotel-takeover event in Washington, D.C., in February. There was one thing I saw there that is messing with my head, and I hope you can set me straight. There was this lovely little six-person orgy going on with two cute-as-could-be hippie girls and four older dudes. Then these four people came along. They sat and watched — a guy and three women in hijabs and dresses that went wrist to ankle, fully covered. After a while, one of the hippie girls turned to them and said, “I’d be happy to flog you later if you’d like.” The three women in hijab giggled. The whole scene was really sweet, but I just couldn’t get over these three women. I saw them walking around all night, taking it all in. Intellectually, I know there is no reason to think that conservative Islam is incompatible with kink. But my cultural biases make me feel that it is. Or is it possible that covering is their kink? What would you make of that? WASHINGTON KINKSTER WONDERING
“With all the hateful anti-Muslim rhetoric out there these days, it is tempting to romanticize Islam,” said Eiynah, a Pakistani-Canadian children’s-book author who also hosts a podcast that focuses on sex, Islam and apostasy. “The impulse is understandable, but Islam is another one of the blatantly sex-negative Abrahamic faiths.” The other blatantly sexnegative Abrahamic faiths, for those of you keeping score out there, are Judaism and Christianity. “Nothing outside of ultra-vanilla plain ol’ twoperson hetero sex within the confines of marriage is permissible,” said Eiynah. “So as much as I’d love to agree with WKW that conservative Islam isn’t incompatible with kink, there’s every reason to say that it is. It’s even incompatible with a woman being slightly ‘immodest’ in front of men. Modesty codes are pretty rigid in Islam, and in non-Muslim-majority countries, modesty garments tend to stick out rather than blend in. Which achieves the exact opposite purpose — attracting more attention, not less.” And when sex-negativity, modesty and religion mix it up, WKW, the part of our brain that grinds out kinks — precise location yet to be determined — kicks into high gear. That’s why there is Mormon-undergarment porn out there and nun porn and hot-priest calendars for sale on sidewalks just outside Vatican City. “Islamic modesty has become fetishized for some — quite literally,” said Eiynah. “There’s hijabi porn and hijabi Lolitas. So the people WKW saw could be into some form of hijab kink.” I’ve seen a few people dressed up as Catholic nuns at fetish parties, WKW, and I didn’t think, “Hey, what are nuns doing here?!?” I thought, “That person has a nun kink.” (Related point: The nuns you see at queer-pride parades? Not really nuns. #TheMoreYouKnow) “Finally, it’s possible they could be a more
‘open-minded’ polygynous Muslim family that ventured into the hotel in a moment of adventurousness,” said Eiynah. “We are all human, after all, with urges, kinks, curiosities and desires that surface, no matter what ancient morality code we try to follow.” Amen. Eiynah tweets @NiceMangos, her terrific podcast — Polite Conversations — is available on all the usual podcast platforms, and her children’s book, My Chacha Is Gay, can be ordered at chachaisgay.com. I cannot find a woman who will accept my panty fetish. Please advise. TREMBLING MAN INQUIRES
Keep looking, TMI. There are women out there who think men can be sexy in panties — and anyone who thinks men can’t be sexy in panties needs to check out all the hunky panty-wearing models at xdress.com. I am a sissy husband. My problem is I am not attracted to women at all. I have asked my wife to cuckold me. My penis is less than two inches long, and the only way for me to have sex with her is by using my strap-on on her. When I do that, all I can think of is my best friend Roberto whom I am very attracted to. I shared a queen-size bed with him for two years. While we lived together, I did all of the “women’s work.” Roberto always told me how small and soft and feminine my hands were. He drank a lot and then would pass out in our bed. I would put on one of my sexy pink nighties and sleep next to him. Now I have a wife, and I am so jealous that Roberto might find a girlfriend. I have begged my wife to cuckold me with Roberto. She said, “Roberto is a very sexy man, but I don’t know.” How can I tell her that I am totally feminine and turned off by women and totally turned on by men? How do I tell her that she is married to a sissy-man lover? I want her to have a boyfriend. Then when she is out with her boyfriend, I would get dressed up like a sissy, and be locked out of the house dressed as a woman and have to wait for her to let me back in after her boyfriend left. Please help.
“I CANNOT FIND A WOMAN WHO WILL ACCEPT MY PANTY FETISH.”
LUST IN SOUTH AMERICA
Thanks for sharing. Not sure I believe a word you wrote, LISA, but it was an entertaining read. (OK, OK, some advice: Tell your wife the truth, i.e., you are not and have never been attracted to women; suggest redefining your marriage as a loving-but-companionate one; and propose cuckolding as a way for you two to maintain a sexual connection, albeit one mediated through a third party. Good luck.) On the Lovecast, “The Epidemic of Gay Loneliness” and a takedown of Beauty and the Beast: savagelovecast.com
SEND YOUR QUESTIONS TO MAIL@SAVAGELOVE.NET AND FIND THE SAVAGE LOVECAST (DAN’S WEEKLY PODCAST) AT SAVAGELOVECAST.COM
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NO-SAINT PATRICK Three questions we want Pat Toomey to answer at his next “town hall” {BY CHARLIE DEITCH}
YOU SAID THE REPEAL OF THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT WON’T “PULL THE RUG OUT FROM UNDER ANYONE.” ARE YOU SURE YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT THAT PHRASE MEANS? First off, just by making that claim you acknowledge that a lot of Americans do indeed have the “rug” of health insurance currently under their feet. Maybe it’s not the cushiest rug, but it keeps them from diagnosing themselves on WebMD, or extracting wisdom teeth with a rock and an ice skate like Tom Hanks did in Castaway. In fact, the number of uninsured Americans is the lowest it’s ever been in this nation’s history. Secondly, early estimates show that between eight and 10 million people will lose health care if the ACA is repealed and replaced with the Republicans’ health-care bill. So, technically, you’re not pulling the rug out; you’re lighting a match and setting it on fire. And, thanks to you, most people can’t afford the burn unit because they won’t have insurance.
WILL FUTURE TOWN-HALL MEETINGS ACTUALLY BE HELD IN A TOWN HALL? Protesters have been furious with the U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania for dodging their requests for a public meeting to discuss concerns ranging from health care to the general sanity of President Donald Trump. They’ve protested your refusal to have a public forum, and you showed them by holding a telephone town hall on just 90 minutes’ notice. A couple of weeks later, Senator, you held a 15-minute Facebook Live event with even less notice than that. While we are excited for the upcoming “Pat Toomey Short-Wave-Radio Constituent Caucus,” and the sureto-be-a-hit “Pat Toomey’s Message-in-a-Bottle Q&A,” how about you rent a space and meet people face to face? Or, hell, call City Paper (412-316-3342) and we’ll rent the space ourselves if you agree to show up.
YOU DO REALIZE YOU WORK FOR ALL CITIZENS OF PENNSYLVANIA, RIGHT? Here’s something that will shock you, Senator — I didn’t vote for you last fall, nor did I electronically check your name six years ago. As this paper’s opinion writer and not a reporter, I think it’s OK to come clean about that “surprise.” In fact, I know a lot of people who didn’t support you; that’s no shock, either — you can easily check the election returns. But like it or not, you work for all of us, the ones who voted for you and the ones who didn’t. And while your supporters might like your voting record, you owe the people who {CP ILLUSTRATION BY VINCE DORSE} didn’t support you answers, when you do things like support Jeff Sessions for attorney general, or Betsy DeVos for education secretary. You owe us an explanation when the president makes a wild, unsupported accusation of wiretapping and other nonsense, and you refuse to speak up in the name of politics. You chose to run for this office, and part of the job is meeting with all of your constituents and hearing their issues.
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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 03.15/03.22.2017
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