Feb. 14, 2018 - Love & Sex Issue

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TONIGHT, February 14 Get Che eky City Paper A Night With PGH nthood and Planned Pare n pa

Hard Rock Cafe, Station Square 8-11 pm, 21+ event See our ad on page 23, inside the Love and Sex section.

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Mary Halvorson’s Code Girl EVENTS 2.24 – 3pm DANDY ANDY: WARHOL’S QUEER HISTORY TOUR Free with museum admission

3.11 – 8pm SOUND SERIES: LIVE! ON STAGE JONATHAN RICHMAN, FEATURING TOMMY LARKINS ON THE DRUMS! The Warhol entrance space Free parking available in The Warhol lot.

Tickets $15/$12 members & students

3.7 – 8pm The Warhol theater, Co-presented with City of Asylum Tickets $20/$15 members & students

3.16 – 5-10pm YOUTH INVASION 2018: STAY WOKE Teens take over The Warhol.

Free with museum admission

Cornelius

3.17 – 8pm SOUND SERIES: COUNTER)INDUCTION The Warhol theater Co-presented by the Music on the Edge series of the University of Pittsburgh Department of Music The groundbreaking NYC ensemble performs Elena Mendoza’s Nebelsplitter, Douglas Boyce’s Etude, Kyle Bartlett’s Twitch, Mario Davidovsky’s Quartetto #3, and Gabriel Erkoreka’s Rondo.

Tickets $15/$10 students and seniors in advance, $20/$15 students and seniors at the door

3.21 – 10am HALF-PINT PRINTS For children ages 1 to 4 years old.

Free with museum admission

3.10 – 8pm Carnegie Lecture Hall (Oakland), Tickets $25/$20 members & students

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

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 02.14/02.21.2018

02.14/02.21.2018 VOLUME 28 + ISSUE 07

[EDITORIAL] Editor CHARLIE DEITCH News Editor REBECCA ADDISON Associate Editor AL HOFF Digital Editor ALEX GORDON Staff Writers RYAN DETO, CELINE ROBERTS Music Writer MEG FAIR Interns EMILY BENNETT, SABRINA BODON, JAKE MYSLIWCZYK, LAUREN ORTEGO

[ART] Director of Operations KEVIN SHEPHERD Production Director JULIE SKIDMORE Art Director LISA CUNNINGHAM Graphic Designer JEFF SCHRECKENGOST

[ADVERTISING]

[MAIN FEATURE]

Can yyou have love without sex?

C t without ith t actually t ll Can you d date being in the same room? Can you get a sex chair in avocado green? We answer these questions and more in our 2018 Love and Sex Issue.

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THIS WEEK

ONLINE

“WE’RE TRYING TO PULL DRAG OUT OF BARS, SO IT’S MORE WELCOMING AND MORE ACCESSIBLE.”

www.pghcitypaper.com

On City Paper’s Politicrap blog, we examine how Donald Trump’s actions in Washington, D.C., impact people here in Pittsburgh. Check it out at www.pghcitypaper.com.

Introducing #PGH360, photo intern Jake Mysliwczyk’s new weekly Instagram feature where he’ll be taking a 360-degree tour of the city skyline.

Look for a new photo every Tuesday at Instagram.com/pghcitypaper.

{CP PHOTO BY JOHN COLOMBO}

Max Busch testifies before Pittsburgh City Council.

CP is part of ProPublica’s Documenting Hate project aimed at collecting reports of hate crimes and bias incidents. If you’ve been a victim or a witness, tell us your story at www.pghcitypaper.com.

GENDER EXPRESSIONS

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AST WEEK, on the same day the British island territory of Bermuda revoked same-sex marriage rights for its citizens, a dozen people went to Pittsburgh City Council to speak in support of legalizing drag performances.

Among the attendees was Max Busch, an 11-year-old drag artist from Mount Lebanon who performs under the name Honey Chuckles.

“I just want to say that drag is for everyone,” said Busch. “Drag is art. Art is what you choose to show about yourself and reveal truth.”

Under Pittsburgh’s current zoning code, drag performances are included in the category of adult cabaret which is

relegated to specific areas of the city.

Those in the drag community say placing drag in this category is limiting. The city ordinance currently being proposed would eliminate the words “male or female

Advocates say Pittsburgh’s drag performers need more latitude to shine {BY REBECCA ADDISON} impersonators” from the code. And as a result, drag artists would be given more latitude to perform throughout the city.

“When you change this law, you will

help end bias against this community,” Busch said. “You will allow space for me to perform and to see other artists. You will help end dangerous, untrue ideas about gender. Drag is part of the culture, history, politics and art of the LGBTQIA+ community. Drag is important.”

Amending the law is largely a symbolic gesture; the code hasn’t been enforced in recent years. But for members of the drag community, city council’s action signals greater acceptance of drag performers and the LGBTQ community as a whole.

“As other members of council have said, this was a very easy thing for us,” Council President Bruce Kraus said at the Feb. 8 public hearing, before praising CONTINUES ON PG. 08

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Busch for his testimony. “I was impressed by your courage. … It took a lot of courage for you to come out today and speak for who you are, what you believe in and what you are passionate about.”

The change is part of ongoing efforts to expand drag beyond the bar scene and into the mainstream. Members of the drag community want to make drag more accessible for children and teens like Busch who are often barred from nightlife venues. They say it’s important for younger drag performers and those exploring gender expression to see people whom they can relate to.

“Not being able to do this in places outside of bars makes it really hard for trans kids and kids exploring their gender to have a place to do that and to see people who are like them — other drag queens and drag kings,” says Kitt Kavanaugh, a local drag king. “A lot of the drag community is in bars.

We’re trying to pull drag out of bars, so it’s more welcoming and more accessible, so other folks can see it, like kids and teens.”

Under Pittsburgh’s zoning code, drafted in 1958, adult cabaret is only allowed to take place in “urban industrial” areas. This includes areas like the Strip District, home to venues that host drag performances regularly.

Under the current code, adult cabaret is defined as “a cabaret which features topless dancers, go-go dancers, exotic dancers, strippers, male or female impersonators, or similar entertainers which characterize an emphasis on matter depicting, describing or relating to specified sexual activities or specified anatomical areas as defined herein.” But advocates say drag differs from some of the other performance genres included in the definition.

“We applaud city council and the mayor for updating language in our zoning code that hasn’t been changed since the 1950s, a time when the American public began to really crack down on the LGBT community,” said Gary Van Horn, president of the Delta Foundation of Pittsburgh, an LGBTQ advocacy organization, at last week’s public hearing.

Van Horn presented council with a petition signed by more than 300 people supporting the change. He said that although drag performances have gone on largely unimpeded in Pittsburgh in recent years, it’s important for the policy to be put in writing.

“While hearts and minds continue to change, those that hate, and even despise, the LGBT community are more determined than ever. They see that we are winning the fight for equality. We are more comfort-

Gary Van Horn speaks before council.

able telling our stories, and at the end of the day, people are understanding that we just want to love who we want to love. And really, this world could use a little more love,” Van Horn said. “While strides have been made, our fight is far from over. In Portland, Tennessee, they are trying to do an outright ban on drag shows. We must continue to fight the fight, tell our stories, and remove any law that would discriminate against a community that has been marginalized for way too long.”

Last year, legislators in Portland, Tenn. put forth an ordinance aimed at prohibiting drag shows in the city. Like Pittsburgh, that ordinance would have listed male and female impersonators under the category of “adult cabaret.” According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the ordinance “sought to define male or female impersonation as inherently erotic in order to regulate it as adult entertainment and effectively zone drag shows out of existence in Portland.”

After the ACLU intervened on behalf of the local drag community, the ordinance that eventually passed clarified that “adult cabarets are businesses that offer erotic entertainment with the performers exposing certain anatomical areas.” The ACLU says this criterion doesn’t apply to drag performers.

But despite changes to the ordinance, the controversy was enough to stifle Portland’s drag community. Just last week, Elite Productions, the company responsible for hosting drag shows in Portland, announced it would be moving its shows to the nearby town of Gallatin.

This is exactly what Pittsburgh advocates want to avoid.

“It’s ridiculous to try to tell adults that

“DRAG IS ART.”

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you can’t perform your art because of some preconceived idea of what it represents,” says Ace Phoenix, a local performer. “People don’t understand the importance of the art and what the art means to performers and people who understand it.

“We need to stay together to see all kinds of gender performance and queer performance supported in the city of Pittsburgh.”

According to the Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBTQ advocacy organization, 26 percent of LGBTQ youth say their biggest problems are not feeling accepted by their family, being bullied at school and fear of being out or open. And LGBTQ youth are twice as likely as their peers to say they have been physically assaulted, kicked or shoved at school.

Additionally, four in 10 LGBTQ youth say the community they live in is not accepting of LGBTQ people. And 92 of LGBTQ youth say they hear negative messages about being LBGTQ. The top sources are school, the internet and their peers.

Advocates say changing the city’s code will help to eliminate stigma around the LGBTQ community.

“If it’s not changed, it could cause

problems for people who own certain venues where drag is performed,” says Kavanaugh, who has been performing drag in the city for more than three years.

“It’s outdated and needs to be changed. It’s something that’s concerning to us because even though it hasn’t been enforced, it always could be enforced. It’s not something that should be in the code, because it’s not something that’s wrong.”

Kavanaugh says it’s inaccurate to view drag as an adult or sexual art form. For practitioners, drag is about performing and exploring gender expression.

“I’ve always been a very performative person, but [I] always wanted to do the guy roles and I finally found something I was able to do that in,” Kavanaugh says. “I really love the community here. I’ve gone through my own gender journey doing drag and felt really comfortable doing that here. I’ve felt very supported. I like being able to show who I am, and getting to show folks who might be struggling, that there’s people like them.

“I always go in drag at Pride, because you never know who’s going to see you and think, ‘It’s good that there’s people out there like me.’”

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CARD CARRYING

How to get a Pennsylvania medical-marijuana card {BY RYAN DETO} THEY’RE FINALLY HERE. On Feb. 1, Cresco Yeltrah’s CY+ dispensary opened its doors in Butler, Pa., making it Southwestern Pennsylvania’s first medicalmarijuana dispensary. Then on Feb. 7, Solevo Wellness of Squirrel Hill opened its doors with medical marijuana expected to arrive on Feb. 15.

Pennsylvania passed a law legalizing medical marijuana in 2016 and since then, grow facilities in McKeesport and Greene County have sprouted up.

Soon, patients will have legal access to marijuana products at dispensaries all over the region.

All patients need in order to access these newly available products is an official Pennsylvania medical-marijuana card, and City Paper wants to help people navigate the process.

1. Create an online patient profile First, adult patients must fill out a form with accurate and up-to-date personal information, like name, address and date of birth, at the Pennsylvania Department of Health website (www.tinyurl.com/medmarijuanaform). The state says the form should be filled out in all capital letters.

Patrick Nightingale, executive director of the Pittsburgh branch of the marijuana-advocacy group NORML, says some patients have had issues when filling out their applications, because they’re not entering their addresses exactly as it appears on their driver’s license or state-issued ID. To fill out an address correctly, patients should not include punctuation marks; should abbreviate words like “street” or “road”; and when directions are included in an address, patients are advised to input only the first initial. For example, “100 E MAIN ST” is the correct way to type 100 East Main Street.

A similar form must be filled out by those who are caregivers for medicalmarijuana patients who are minors, have a disability, or require in-home support.

3. Turn in application and pay fee Once certified by an authorized physician, patients must return to the state’s health-department website. Patients then fill out the necessary information, including physician details and certification information. A $50 application fee must be submitted to complete the process. Some patients who receive government assistance are eligible for discounts. A card will arrive by mail.

2. Get a doctor to sign off Patients with serious medical conditions, as defined in state law, can qualify for a medical-marijuana card, but first must have a physician certify that they have at least one of those conditions. The 17 conditions are: ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), autism, cancer, Crohn’s disease, epilepsy, glaucoma, HIV/ AIDS, Huntington’s disease, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), intractable seizures, multiple sclerosis (MS), neuropathies, Parkinson’s disease, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), sickle cell anemia, damage to spinal-cord nervous tissue with neurological indication of intractable spasticity, and chronic or intractable pain that has neuropathic origins or where therapy and opiate treatment have proven ineffective to treat that pain.

Nightingale says physicians will determine if patients qualify for medical marijuana to treat their symptoms, and says there’s some wiggle room in how doctors prescribe marijuana. For example, if someone has chronic pain as a result of chemotherapy cancer treatment, then they could qualify even if the cancer was in remission.

According to the state health department, there are 83 practices in the Pittsburgh metro area that can certify medical-marijuana-card applications. Nightingale encourages people to call doctor’s offices first to confirm physicians are involved in the state’s medical-marijuana programs. An up-to-date list of physicians is available on the Pennsylvania government official website (www.tinyurl.com/pameddocs).

4. Visit a dispensary As of Feb. 14, only two dispensaries were open in Southwestern Pennsylvania, but many more are set to follow. A dozen dispensaries are slated to open in the region, and the law currently allows for a total of 15. Pittsburgh is currently getting four: Cresco Yeltrah, in the Strip District; Maitri Medicals, in Oakland; Solevo Wellness Centers, in Squirrel Hill; and Keystone Integrated Care, in Lawrenceville.

Cranberry Township, in Butler County, is set to get two dispensaries, as is Zelienople. Washington, Pa., and Greensburg will have a dispensary each, as will Uniontown in Fayette County. Monroeville also has dispensary plans on the books. Check local dispensaries for hours of operation.

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The Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Switzerland has a new course of study for scholars to pursue: a bachelor’s or masters in yodeling. Beginning in the 2018-19 academic year, students will be able to major in the traditional form of singing, which was used by Swiss herdsmen to communicate with each other in the mountains.

The BBC reported that prize-winning yodeler Nadja Rass will lead the courses, which will also include musical theory and history. “We have long dreamed of offering yodeling at the university,” gushed Michael Kaufmann, head of the school’s music department. [BBC, Jan. 30, 20, 2018]

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Police in Logansport, Ind., finally caught up with the thief who had been targeting churches in the area since Jan. 16: Christian J. Alter, 22, of Kewanna, was charged with breaking into five houses of worship and stealing cash, according to the Logansport Pharos-Tribune. Alter was apprehended Jan. 23 just moments before the fifth burglary, at Rehoboth Christian Church, was discovered by police. He was being held in the Cass County Jail. [Pharos-Tribune, Jan. 24, 2018]

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Birds nesting near natural-gas compressors have been found to suffer symptoms similar to PTSD in humans, according to researchers at the Florida Museum of Natural History, and noise pollution has been named the culprit. The Washington Post reported the team studied birds in the Rattlesnake Canyon Habitat Management Area in New Mexico, which is uninhabited by humans but does contain natural-gas wells and compression stations that constantly emit a low-frequency hum. The steady noise was linked to abnormal levels of stress hormones, and the usually hardy western bluebirds in the area were found to be smaller and displayed bedraggled feathers. “The body is just starting to break down,” explained stress physiologist Christopher Lowry. [The Washington Post, Jan. 9, 2018]

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In Texas, game wardens came across an arresting sight in Gregg County last November: an unnamed Upshur County man hunting in the nude along a state highway. The Houston Chronicle reported that the hunter, who is a well-known nudist and activist in the area, contested his arrest on charges including hunting without a license, but one look in court at the warden’s body cam footage undermined his case. The man then dropped his appeals and settled the citations. [Houston Chronicle, Nov. 22, 2017]

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Vincente Rodrigues-Ortiz, 22, was arrested on Jan. 24 in Grand Rapids, Mich., for the assault and murder of Andre Hawkins, 17, the day before. But when Rodrigues-Ortiz appeared in court on Jan. 25 for arraignment, he questioned the judge about his

“other murder case.” WWMT-TV reported that his query led prosecutors to interview and then swiftly charge him with the March 2017 homicide of Laurie Kay Lundeburg, and Rodrigues-Ortiz now awaits arraignment in that case as well. [WWMT-TV, Jan. 25, 2018]

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Kane Blake of Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada, has great things to say about his Spring Valley home: “It’s a gorgeous neighborhood,” and his family loves most things about it. Nevertheless, the Blakes have listed their home for sale, with a sign out front reading: “Home for Sale by owner because neighbor is an ---hole.” Blake said a neighbor has been harassing his family for five years, including sending police and bylaws officers to the house for frivolous reasons and taking photos of Blake’s house. “My kids won’t even walk to school, they’re terrified,” he told the Kelowna Capital News, adding that he’s received several offers on his house. (Update: Kane has since removed the sign.) [Kelowna Capital News, Jan. 27, 2018]

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A landlord in Cardiff, Wales, was caught in a compromising position when he offered a special rent deal to an ITV Wales reporter with a hidden camera. The unnamed man posted an ad on Craigslist offering a £650-per-month home with the option of a “reduced deposit/rent arrangement” for “alternative payments.” When he met reporter Sian Thomas at a restaurant to discuss the property, he said, “I don’t know if you have heard of a sort of ‘friends with benefits’ sort of arrangement,” reported Metro News on Jan. 30.

He went on to say that if a once-a-week sex arrangement could be struck, “then I wouldn’t be interested in any rent from you at all.” The ITV Wales report was part of an investigation into “sex for rent” arrangements, which apparently are not uncommon in Wales, judging from other advertisements. [Metro News, Jan. 30, 2018]

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A Missouri State University freshman identified only as Hayden may have set the perfect stage for a romantic story he’ll tell into old age. In January, as he trolled Tinder, he spotted Claudia, also a student at MSU in Springfield. But, as the Springfield NewsLeader reported, Hayden accidentally swiped left, rejecting her, so he decided on a bold move to find her. On Jan. 20, he searched the MSU website for every person named Claudia and emailed them all, asking “the” Claudia to email him back. He offered a doughnut date for “the one that got away.” Claudia Alley, a freshman from Jefferson City, got Hayden’s email and knew she was his target because he referenced a joke she made in her Tinder bio.

Alley emailed Hayden, and the two planned to get doughnuts — and perhaps make history — later that week. [Springfield News-Leader, Jan. 20, 2018]

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 02.14/02.21.2018

{CP PHOTO BY JAKE MYSLIWCZYK}

Holden, left, snuggles with fiancé Francis in their home.

{BY MEG FAIR}

O

FTEN IN television, film and books, love and sex are a package deal — one in the same. But for asexual people in the real world, there’s a whole realm of emotional connections that don’t involve sex.

Asexuality is a sexual preference that exists on a spectrum, just like most other types of sexuality. Some asexual people d don’t have never had sex and desire to; some will masn’t desire turbate but don’t d sex; partner-based n the and some folks on asexual spectrum are ex comfortable having sex er. with a romantic partner. nt There are different ng names for the varying emitypes of asexuality too; demile who sexuals are asexual people desire sex only with people they have n to; gray-A a strong emotional connection x drives or or graysexuals have very low sex n rare instances of sexual attraction.

Holden Grimes is asexual, and has identified as such since they were around

19 years old.

“It was about the same time I started identifying as non-binary. I had just gotten out of a really bad relationship in ich the person had continuously tried which to make me participate in sex with him, ki and I was kind of confused. I had been with a female friend before him, and I didn enjoy sex then either. didn’t At this point I was like, ‘So ‘Something’s weird here,’” say Grimes. says Grimes realized that they felt no sexual attraction to anyone. “You can be romantically t somebody, attracted to aesthetically attracted to somebody. The There are so many different br branches of attraction that peopl people of all spectrums fall into,” explain explains Grimes. “I’m aesthetically attracte to [people of all genders]; it’s just tracted t that I don’t want to have sex with them.”

Grimes is now engaged to a partner who is not asexual, and the two occasionally do have sex.

“There’s this misconception that all asexual people cannot have sex. People hear asexual and just assume you never have sex or can’t have sex, but that’s not true,” Grimes says.

“So many people think that because I love my fiancé, I’ve got to be sexually attracted to him. But my love for him has nothing to do with that — they’re two totally different types of attraction.

But as a single woman, she says dating is difficult.

“When I’m kissing someone, I’m like, ‘This is really nice!’ but as soon as it gets more intimate than that I’m like, ‘I am bored now,’” she says.

“Being attracted to people is strange, because I think people are beautiful, but I never react physically. I just want to be people’s friends or go on a date. I didn’t realize for so long that that wasn’t how everyone felt,” she continues. “I want to stay up all night and talk and hang out, and most [non-asexual] partners want to have sex and cuddle and go to sleep, and then my needs are never met.”

Both she and Grimes are romantics that love cheesy romance-based anime and movies. They love love, just not sex.

“One of the things is that people assume if you’re asexual is that you don’t want to be in a relationship, or you can’t be queer, or your romance and sexual interest are the same thing,” she says. “Humans are inherently social creatures; just because you don’t want to have sex doesn’t mean you don’t crave companionship.”

For more information on asexuality, check out the Asexual Visibility and Education Network at www.asexuality.org.

Another asexual person, who spoke to City Paper on the condition of anonymity, explains why it’s possible for some asexual people to have sex with their partners.

“It’s like going to see a movie your partner wants to see and you don’t,” says the asexual lesbian in her mid-twenties.

“You’ll go and see it, but you don’t necessarily enjoy it.”

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MORE PHOTOS ONLIN. E

www per pa pghcitym .co

{CP PHOTO BY JAKE MYSLIWCZYK}

West End Overlook

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Inside Body Shop

Look no further if you’re planning to propose in the near future. City Paper will be giving one lucky reader the chance to pop the question in the pages of our weekly. Write and tell us how your loved one’s eyes will light up when flipping through their favorite publication, or how they told you they’d say “no” if your proposal wasn’t over the top. Send your pitch to raddison@pghcitypaper.com

by Feb. 28. The winner will be announced in March.

And in case your submission is passed over, here are some proposal destinations in Pittsburgh sure to wow your partner.

Randyland There have been a few proposals (and even two weddings) at this colorful and playful spot, in the Mexican War Streets, on the North Side. If you’re planning on proposing here, let Randy and his team know in advance so they can help make it perfect.

Schenley Bridge For this romantic gesture, you’ll need a ring and a lock. While your partner clicks the lock with your initials into place onto this Oakland bridge, get down on one knee and wait for them to turn around.

West End Overlook The West End Overlook offers one of the most iconic views of Pittsburgh, but with more privacy than Mount Washington.

While your loved one is entranced by the city skyline, slip the ring from your pocket and pop the question.

Ice Rink at PPG Place Before attempting this, make sure both you and your partner know how to ice skate. Don’t risk proposing to somebody who may fracture a tailbone in the process.

BY SABRINA BODON

{BY REBECCA ADDISON}

L

OOKING TO DIP your toe into the

BDSM waters? Ever dreamt of getting intimate with your partner in front of an audience? Interested in switching up your relationship by adding a third partner into the bedroom mix? Well, there’s a nightclub in Pittsburgh that can make many of those dreams come true.

The location is secret; it’s a private memy tery disbers-only deal. But don’t let the mystery hop isn’t one suade you. The Body Shop ubs out of those seedy sex clubs of an episode of Law and ’t Order SVU. In fact, don’t even call it a sex club.

“It’s an enhanced lifestyle club,” says Gelsomi-no Esplandiu, co-owner of the Body Shop. olved Esplandiu first got involved yle comin what’s called the lifestyle erred to as munity — sometimes referred metown. He swingers — in his Ohio hometown. or lik started organizing parties for like-minded couples, and eventually the parties became so popular that he decided to turn the fun into a business. Now he has one nightclub in Ohio and a second location in Pittsburgh.

At first glance, much of the Body Shop looks just like any other club. There’s a dance floor — albeit with a stripper poll — and a DJ booth built into an old car.

The Body Shop doesn’t sell alcohol, but members are invited to bring their own.

On Saturdays, dinner is served at 10 p.m.

“People come in nervous. People think it’s what you see on television. But it’s not,” says co-owner John Ross. “Within 15 min-

utes of being here they feel comfortable.”

A few steps away from the dance floor is the main attraction. Down a hallway, visitors will find the first of a series of rooms where couples can retire for some alone time. The level of privacy a couple has while in the rooms is up to them.

“You can leave the door open, you can he curtains curt have the open, you can invite people in,” says Ross. “It’s an excellent way for you to explore if you’re in a co committed relationship.”

There’s a fantasy room, sp between a mock classsplit ro room and doctor’s office.

A map of the world hangs on one wall and the other side of the room features exa table complete with an exam stirrups The Western-themed stirrups. ha something Howard room has Stern fans will recognize — a saddl saddle-like Sybian masturbation device.

For the more adventurous, there’s a room for light BDSM, featuring a red wall-sized headboard with restraint attachments; it’s currently the club’s most popular room. And for those looking to take things a little further, there’s a more intense BDSM room with a confessionallooking bondage box; it was built to duplicate a box from a Russian video which a client showed the Body Shop’s owners.

“Most of what we do here is fantasy fulfillment,” says Esplandiu. “It’s a safe place. Sex is fun and enjoyable, and unfortunately in this country and some others, we demonize it.”

Tamer rooms include one themed

around Pittsburgh and another dedicated to Andy Warhol. There are also rooms that simply look like generic hotel rooms.

Another space, called the blackout room, glows in the dark.

The clientele at the Body Shop is as diverse as the club’s rooms. Esplandiu says one woman runs around the club holding a teddy bear while her husband chases her. Another couple began visiting after 30 years of marriage.

The Body Shop also offers a number of educational events where couples can learn things to enrich their relationship.

A recent event, with a licensed massage therapist, focused on couples-massage techniques.

Protecting their clientele is important to the Body Shop’s owners. Consent is also important at the club. There are numerous signs posted on the walls saying, “Ask the hunk before you touch the junk,” and “Ask the cutie before you touch the booty.”

And to protect the privacy of members, visitors must put a sticker over the cameras on their phones.

Additionally, the Body Shop has methods for screening potential members. For singles, membership fees must be paid with a credit card. It’s a way of weeding out those people who might be trying to hide their activities from a partner or spouse. This precaution is not for moral reasons, but because Esplandiu says these people tend to be more aggressive when visiting the nightclub.

“Other than that, everyone is welcome,” Esplandiu says. “There’s no other criteria other than you have to be open-minded.”

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{BY RYAN DETO}

D

ATING CAN be hard. Who hasn’t

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overheard people at a bar complain to their friends that “there are no good men in this city.” Or heard others at work tell their coworkers, “I just can’t find the right woman.”

No matter if people live in giant cities with millions of people, or in small, rural towns with only a few hundred, finding someone to really connect with can be ned a struggle. Technology has intervened ecades, to help, and over the last two decades, d the internet has provided ns. some possible solutions.

According to the Statisnstitic Brain Research Instiore tute, by May 2017, more le than 49 million single nAmericans had tried online dating. g is And now, online dating nced becoming even more advanced n 2015, with virtual reality. Starting in g headsets tech companies began selling o virtual that allow users to enter into es wi worlds by pairing these devices with their smartphones. Users could watch immersive videos and play interactive games; the technology has even been used to help Americans understand what it’s like to live in third-world countries and war-torn areas.

Companies like Oculus, a subsidiary of Facebook that has a research office in Pittsburgh, and VRchat offer virtual-reality applications that allow users to interact purely as a social experience. Users don’t need to play a game or score points; they can just chat and socialize.

“VR is such a powerful way to feel

present with the people you care about when you can’t physically be together,” wrote Rachel Rubin Franklin, the head of Social VR at Facebook, in a December 2017 Facebook post.

And some users are using virtual reality to do more than just hang out; they’re going on dates. In December 2017, Monica n, a writer w Chin, for tech news site Mashable, wrote that she saw benefits of using Facebook Spaces Spa to go on dates with her lon long-distance boyfriend. “But ssocial VR isn’t a disconn nect,” wrote Chin. “It’s a n new, heightened conne nection. It’s a connection not tethered t by proximity, one we can define and shape in into whatever we want it to b be.”

But ot others worry that for blind dates, virtual reality will ju just lead to people checking out earlier than if they were on an inperson date. “People might use VR dating to seek out what they think is the perfect partner, and be unwilling to push through to the end of a date with someone who isn’t,” said UCLA social psychology professor Benjamin Karney in a February 2017 article on the tech news site CNET. Either way, virtual-reality technology doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon. Online dating website eHarmony said in a 2015 report that virtual-reality dating will a big part of the dating scene by 2040. Whether people are ready or not, it seems like dating in virtual spaces will become a new normal.

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SASSYSENSATIONS.COM {BY LAUREN ORTEGA}

J

ENNA HOUSTON thought queer Pitts-

burghers were a myth — that the only people like them were their friends and the people they’ve hooked up with. And who could blame them? In Pittsburgh, queer spaces that aren’t bars een. or clubs are few and far between. e occupying To highlight queer people spaces that are not typically associGated with members of the LGn, BTQ community, Houston, a senior at Carnegie Mellon University, began a photography project shooting queer couas ples in spatial areas of domesticity.

“A lot of work about ions is queer populations about spectacle work, where people are kind of looking at drag and pride parades,” Houston says. “Which, those are important, but there’s not a lot of quieter, non-performative work.”

Despite recent cultural and legislative shifts toward the advancement of queer people in the United States, LGBTQ couples still face dangers when walking down the street. Holding hands and

other public displays of affection can result in taunts and violence.

“I love Pittsburgh, deeply, but I do feel like there is still a little homophobia if you’re out and about, especially in terms of these couples,” Houston says. “And we have no gay neighborhood, which I do think is significant.”

W When directing couples as part of the project, Houston tells the them to express themselve in whatever way selves feel best. The process feels be begins somewhat unc comfortable and awkw ward as Houston is first introduced into the c couple’s space, but as the se session progresses, and the cou couple becomes more adjusted to a stranger documenting them, it turn turns into the warm experience captured in the project’s photographs. thi “I think there’s a vulnerability that happens sometimes in these images that I can relate to,” Houston says. “So, it’s nice that I’m able to get that closeness with people I’m photographing — I think that’s a critical part of the work.”

Born in Kalamazoo, Mich., and growing

up in suburban New Jersey, Houston often felt like a misfit. Entering CMU as a freshman, Houston was originally a premed major before becoming fascinated with gender studies and visual arts, and eventually changed their major to be a combination of the two, ditching premed completely.

“I think queer theory has also had a big impact on me talking about queerness in space and things like that,” Houston says. “And now I’m here.”

Houston plans to continue their project through the next few months, adding more couples and getting more diverse people involved. Houston hopes the project will connect queer people with each other in different cities all over the country, potentially closing with an exhibition or Humans-of-New-York-style book. They hope to let the queer community of Pittsburgh know that they are not alone.

“I’m not sure that it ever really has an exact end,” Houston says. “Because I just always will be photographing queer people wherever I go, because those are the people I want to connect with and want to photograph. I don’t think the topic will end with the project.”

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{PHOTO COURTESY OF ARCHER BOWCHAIR}

The mid-century modern Bowchair made from walnut heartwood in Avocado

{CP PHOTO BY JOHN COLOMBO}

Viva Valezz

Viva Valezz has only lived in Pittsburgh for five years, but she’s already at the top of everybody’s list of favorite burlesque performers in the city.

She’s a favorite of Boom Boom Bridgette, another performer, who’s been active for the past eight years.

Though Valezz says the Pittsburgh burlesque scene is in its early but growing stages, Bridgette explains that 10 years ago, the scene was underground with only a handful of performers.

“Burlesque in Pittsburgh started with a small troupe of four or five girls and has exploded in the past two years,” Bridgette says. “Every year the scene goes through a metamorphosis.”

There are shows nearly every other week says Valezz, who is part of the Velvet Hearts, a queer burlesque troupe. The Smokin’ Betties, another burlesque troupe, perform often at Club Café.

Bridgette, as a producer, performer and owner of Pin-Up Productions, says that the Oaks Theater, in Oakmont, is one of her favorite spots. The venue can accommodate more than 300 guests, and she describes the atmosphere as more intense than intimate bars.

And every other year, Pittsburgh is treated to FIERCE, one of the few queer international burlesque festivals. Founded

by Valezz, and now in its sixth year, it’s headed to Toronto, but will make its way back to Pittsburgh next year.

If you’re interested in strip tease yourself, both Valezz and Bridgette are on the forefront of teaching the art locally. Valezz co-manages Better. A Studio for You, where she teaches beginner “burlesque goddess” classes.

“I love seeing women learn how much power they have in expressing their femininity,” Viva says. “Through these classes, I watch them blossom and discover [themselves].”

Bridgette teaches seven-week classes at Fitness Envy. Says Bridgette, “The classes are good for people who want to love themselves, learn something sexy for a partner, or want to get on the stage.”

B Y SA B R INA BO DO N

{BY CELINE ROBERTS}

B

OB KACZMAREK designed the Archer

Bowchair for the love of his life: his wife, Lisa.

A few years ago, Lisa was diagnosed with a pelvic-floor disorder in which her pelvic-floor muscles were constantly contracting. She was experiencing a lot of pain and discomfort, especially during sex.

Soon after she started treatment, Bob, a custom-furniture maker and artisan, had an accident in his shop and cut off part of his middle finger on his right hand. The couple was holed up for awhile — Bob nursing his injured hand and Lisa practicing matic breathing. stretches and diaphragmatic One day, while in a type of a exbridge exercise pose, Lisa axperienced relief and relaxr. ation flooding over her.

That was when inspiration struck. “We should e have sex like this,” she er said. When he told her vity that he didn’t think gravity ve him would allow it, she gave a challenge: “Why don’tt you build k the h something?” Over the nextt ffew weeks, designs for the Archer Bowchair were born.

“It’s been seven years [married], and I’m not in the least bit itchy, except for more,” teases Lisa, looking affectionately at Bob. That was four years ago they designed the chair. Now the Pittsburgh-based couple is running their own business making the chair that Bob designed. Every model is custom-built from American-sourced materials and takes around 40 hours to craft.

It was important to the Kaczmareks that the chair be functional, while also being discreet and beautiful so it can look elegant anywhere in a customer’s home.

Bob crafts each chair using flexible woods, like ash, cherry, red and white oak, mahogany and steamed walnut, that would be suitable for making bows. Faux leather is used for the coverings, and all of the seams are sealed for easy cleaning. Soon they’ll introduce an aluminum version that will be faster to produce and, therefore, sell for almost half the price.

The chair works by using carbon-fiber spring springs that silently help users create low low-impact momentum from a v variety of positions on the chair.

T The springs allow vertical as w as horizontal movement well f varied positions and angles. for It also counter-weighted and It’s ca hold up to 500 pounds. can Since developing this chair, the Kaczmareks have discovered the many ways in which their chair could c help people experience pleasure that might have been previously inaccessible to them. Many of their interested customers have been older or have physical disabilities that may limit expressions of sexuality.

Chairs can be customized to meet the specific needs of customers, including extra supporting rails and sets of rings that act as attachment points. For folks who want to use the chair as a tool for exploration, customizing the chair with a moveable bond-

age bar, handlebars or a so-called “dick on a stick” are additional customizable features.

The dildo is covered in Teflon to prevent chill and is compatible with interchangeable dildo attachments of the client’s choice.

The couple wants to reach as many people as possible. Their goal is to gather effectiveness studies from medical professionals in hopes of getting the chair approved by insurance companies as an assistive device and to build a catalog of accessories to assist differing levels of disability. To raise funds, in March, the couple plans to launch a MedStartr campaign (like a KickStarter for medical devices) to help raise money to meet these goals.

For more information: 412-944-6555 or www.bowchair.com “Heterosexual, homosexual, whatever your choices and who you are, we still want to make a product that serves what you need. We believe everybody matters and human beings deserve to experience love, sex and pleasure in whatever way is most satisfying and natural to them,” says Lisa.

Looking for tips on how to use the chair?

The website provides a handy position guide to help users get started or get creative. Positions are sourced from ancient texts that include the Kama Sutra (secondcentury India), The Perfumed Garden of Sensual Delight (12th-century Arabia) and the Ananga Ranga (15th-century India).

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{BY CHARLIE DEITCH} THE ORIGINAL purpose of this story was

to examine the lost art of writing love letters. In the age of heart and eggplant emojis, it often seems like meaningful correspondence is a thing of the past.

We’ve all heard about the letters our grandparents and great-grandparents wrote to each other during wartime — page after page of captivating prose that compares love to a summer’s day or an ocean breeze. So, recently I ventured over to the Heinz History Center to find reallife ink-on-paper expressions of love.

Turns out, I found something even more meaningful.

When Joseph Ostronic was drafted into the U.S. Navy in 1943, he and his wife Esther had already been married for nearly 20 years and were living in a row house on Peralta Street in the North Side. er and He was a longtime barber was 38 years old when he ce began his military service on the USS Nields, also as as a barber. His ship was w mostly stationed in New en York and Boston, but then ing went into service making arrytransatlantic voyages carrying troops into battle. ed this When the war separated couple, they weren’t two pie-eyed young lovers; they were two veterans of marriage who had spent at least half

{CP PHOTO BY CHARLIE DEITCH}

Letters sealed with a kiss from Esther Ostronic to her husband, Joe

of their lives side by side. Their letters tell the story of two people who hadn’t been apart in ne nearly 25 years; they were both he heartbroken about being sepa separated and fearful about w what the separation might llead to.

On Nov. 1, 1943, Esther wrote to tell Joe tthat she was afraid she m might not be able to take the train to see him on his upcomi upcoming leave.

“The government gov is threatening to cut off all unnecessary travel and if that happens, I may not get to come to where

you are stationed,” she wrote. “Unless I use the bus and I’ll do that even if I have to stand all the way there sweetheart.”

She signed the letter: “God Bless and keep you my darling for me. Your selfish wife Esther.” The letters were also usually covered in lipstick kisses.

For his part, Joe was a pretty prolific writer. The letters to his wife fill two archival boxes. In the beginning, he kept the letters as upbeat as possible. In one of the first, he signs it, “So long for now kid. Love and kisses, Joe.” However as 1943 turns into 1944, and then that year into 1945, his letters show what the pain of separation has done to

him and the temptations he faced when on leave. The worry of infidelity was present in both their letters.

On Feb. 7, 1944, Esther writes: “My darling daddykins, Darling when you go out on leave please don’t go with the girls, as I want you to be true to me as I am to you honey boy. Sweetheart, I live only for you and I love you with all my heart, body, mind and soul.”

One of the most amazing things is how honest Joe is about his situation.

Two weeks following her letter, he writes that being away from home for so long “is going to make a bunch of bums out of a lot of real swell young lads, as dear all they think of is to shack up with some girl when they hit port … But dear, I am not thinking like that, I am thinking of you sweetheart and the day I come back home to you, when I can take you in my arms again and truthfully say that I have been true to you and love you and only you and I have kept myself clean and untouched for you only. … God knows dear there has been a lot of temptation when I was on liberty here and in New York but sweetheart, there has never been anyone who could hold a candle to you.”

Joe Ostronic did finally make it back home to Esther in 1945; their love endured separation and a world at war until Joe died in May 1982. However, one can’t help but wonder if they would have made it through without constant communication. The Ostronics wrote each other every day they were apart and shared their lives — the good and the bad —with each other. They shared the kind of deep, intimate moments that you just can’t capture with a heart emoji.

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NEW LOCAL RELEASES {BY MEG FAIR}

Soda Club ENJOY SELF-RELEASED

Enjoy, Soda Club’s debut EP, is four songs of poppy goodness with vulnerable lyrics, dreamy harmonies and a sound that celebrates cuteness. Vocalist, guitarist and ukulele player Shay Park takes the primary role of storyteller, while Jarrett Krause, when he’s not playing his tenor saxophone, fills the dual vocalist role so often found in twee music.

Tosh Chambers on bass guitar and Mason Jaynes on drums hold down the groove through shifting movements.

The band shines in its ability to make smart, intimate pop tracks.

“Halloween Party,” the EP opener, is an instant classic with playful dynamics and very relatable lyrics. “I show up to your Halloween party without a costume on. Everyone keeps asking me who am I supposed to be,” sings vocalist Park, a simple question with a loaded, existential undertone. Eventually, Park and Krause reveal their hand, admitting their true selves with shared vocals over a delightful uke riff: “I’m not popping bottles, I’m just popping pimples. Stay in my pajamas, keep it nice and simple.”

“Been Down” is a bouncy musical pep talk, a loving song that feels like encouragement from your closest friend and confidante.

The tone shifts into melancholy dreaminess with “Stone Soup,” a track about fleeting flings. The way that all those tiny details and moments fall into disrepair is embodied by a musical round of Park and Krause that swirls with a gentle aching tone.

Enjoy concludes with “Haunter,” in which Krause takes the lead vocal. It’s a waltzing number, a drunken dizzy spin around the kitchen with someone who makes your heart race. “Don’t mind if you haunt me, just want you to want me,” sing Park and Krause, in a sugary harmony, before giving way to the repetition of a bittersweet and defeated, “I don’t even want me.”

The four songs on Enjoy show off Soda Club’s range. It also reminds listeners that while cute can be powerful, catchy melodies are more important than musical excess, and nothing is more intimate than confessing your love of popping pimples.

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{CP PHOTO BY JOHN COLOMBO}

Andre Costello in the planetarium at Carnegie Science Center

SHIFTING FREQUENCIES {BY MEG FAIR}

D

URING HIS high school years,

Andre Costello and his friends would pile in a car and travel from Ellwood City, in Beaver County, to the Buhl Planetarium, at Carnegie Science Center, to check out the shows.

“One time we came down and saw a Beatles, Radiohead and Pink Floyd show, all three in a row, like three consecutive hours,” chuckles Costello. “It was a lot.”

“But I remember going to those shows and being like, ‘This would be cool with a live band! Why not do that?’ The idea sat in the back of my mind for awhile.”

Costello helms Pittsburgh’s cosmic Americana rock act, Andre Costello and the Cool Minors. The band hasn’t released a record since 2014, but the gang is debuting its brand-new album on Misra Records in a big way. In a return to the cavernous Buhl

planetarium controller to figure out how the show will look.

“We put on the album, and it’s like my own personal laser show,” explains Costello, “Best meeting ever! I’m like hollering during it, being like, ‘I like that laser a lot!’ or ‘Can we fly through space? Can we see Jupiter?’

And the answer is: ‘Yes, yes, you can.’”

Resident Frequencies is an ideal record for performing to a laser show; its big spacey sound and exploratory jams play against jangly rock numbers and catchy hooks. The audio variation lends itself to some intriguing visual exploration as well, something the band is used to playing with: Its 2012 EP, Summer’s Best, was accompanied by a 15-minute music video.

In addition to variation in sounds, the album plays with different storytelling techniques and themes.

Planetarium at Carnegie Science Center of his youth, Costello and company will be performing their forthcoming record, Resident Frequencies, live to a choreographed laser show.

RESIDENT FREQUENCIES RELEASE SHOW 6:30 p.m. Sat., Feb. 17. Buhl Planetarium at the Carnegie Science Center, 1 Allegheny Ave., North Side. $19.10-$37.22. 412-237-3400 or www.carnegiesciencecenter.org

After an initial attempt to set something up a few years ago didn’t pan out, Costello returned to his mission of playing in the planetarium a year ago, this time with success. The band will have one dress rehearsal before the show, but in the meantime, Costello has been meeting with the

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RESIDENT FREQUENCIES, CONTINUED FROM PG. 25

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“All of it is influenced by real things.

Some songs are introspective, some are autobiographical, others are about family members and people I know, and some of it is just riffing on the times,” says Costello.

One such example of riffing on the times is “NSA,” a cheery-sounding rock song that wraps the anxiety of surveillance culture into a poppy, American-rock package that juxtaposes the music with the harsher lyrics. It’s Costello’s ability to write earworms with heavier concepts that makes his work accessible.

“You’re like a filter [as an artist]. You’re distilling down all of your interactions into a piece of art, and no matter what the medium is, that’s what’s happening. Sometimes the outside world can be too noisy, and you have to find a way to find peace, or you drive yourself insane. Luckily, I have an outlet for creative expression that helps me find peace,” says Costello.

You can hear that peace on “Kinda.” It’s a bright jam that oozes bliss and ease.

“Kinda” may sound familiar — the band has been playing it for a few years.

But Costello isn’t sick of the older songs on this record.

“I’m beyond excited to actually play these older ones and find ways to reinvent them. This is the first show we’ll be playing the album in its entirety, and it’ll be true to how it’s recorded as well. We’re going to have samples that come in and atmospheric sounds,” explains Costello.

The album’s title, Resident Frequencies, sounds kind of spacey as well, but for Costello, it has its own little meaning.

“I kind of managed a house I lived in for a few years, and 27 roommates came and went in the time we lived there,” explains Costello. “For me, [the title] is about how places and spaces and people have their own frequency and personal vibration.”

M E G FA I R@ P G H C I T Y PA P E R. C OM

STORY TIME {BY CHARLIE DEITCH} 412.318.4557 www.backyardflagfootball.org

There’s something special about songs that use poppy melodies to handle heavy subject matter. That’s the route that Reina del Cid takes on her new album, Rerun City, and it makes for a pretty terrific eight-track journey.

Del Cid, of Minneapolis, didn’t create the technique, of course. Classic country-and-western music is filled with such songs. Like Ray Price’s “Invitation to the Blues,” which bounces along at such a carefree pace that you don’t realize at Reina del Cid first that the song’s about a guy getting his heart ripped out of his chest by the woman he loves. Del Cid heard songs like that while growing up in Fargo, N.D., and it’s from where she draws her love of the method.

“I grew up listening to classic country music,” she tells City Paper by phone. “That’s the legacy of that sort of music. Heavy, dark themes dressed up in a sunny package.

“On my last record, The Cooling, the title track is about realizing you’re dead, but still walking around in life. It’s a dark theme, but the music doesn’t match, and I feel like it creates this great sense of tension.”

On Rerun City, “Queen Hazel” deals with heroin addiction, but the melody does a good job at concealing the dark subject matter, until that moment when it clicks that this isn’t a song about a fairy-tale maiden.

Rerun City also marks a sonic departure for del Cid, who along with her band, hit The Smiling Moose on Feb. 19. On this record, she makes the full transition from more of a folk-rock sound to pretty, pure pop-rock, a genre she began flirting with on The Cooling.

That transition is aided by del Cid’s lead guitarist, Toni Lindgren. Her presence is felt throughout Rerun City and she may be one of the best guitarists you haven’t heard of yet.

Del Cid is a talented songwriter and that undoubtedly stems from being a gifted storyteller. She was an English major who once saw her career path leading more toward literature professor than singer-songwriter. But that background shows in her lyrics.

“I’ve always found it’s hard to write an autobiographical song,” she says. “I always end up writing about other people’s experiences, and that has to do with my background in literature.

“I’ve always thought of myself as more of a storyteller than a confessional writer.”

C D E I T C H @ P G H C I T Y PA P E R. C OM

REINA DEL CID WITH DIAMOND SHAPES, SAM STUCKY, CALEB KOPTA 6 p.m. Mon., Feb. 19. Smiling Moose, 1306 E. Carson St., South Side. $10-12. All ages. 412-431-4668 or www.smilingmoose.com

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 02.14/02.21.2018

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The Spirit of the Beehive

ON THE FRINGES {BY ELI ENIS} DESCRIBING WHAT The Spirit of the Bee-

hive sounds like is a beautifully frustrating process. Beautiful in that the Philly quartet’s 2017 record, pleasure suck, is a rare specimen of genre transcendence and sonic peerlessness.

Thing is, it’s frustrating for the same reason, especially for a music writer who, often at the cost of occasional pigeonholing, recommends artists via points of comparison. Attempting to explain something like pleasure suck results in a great deal of helpless sputtering.

The record’s head-spinning, groundless quality is the source of its intrigue.

It’s also why, somewhat to frontman Zack Schwartz’s dismay, The Spirit of the Beehive are currently more of a band’s band than anything else.

“I was kinda hoping that it would reach a wider audience, but I guess it didn’t really,” Schwartz tells City Paper. “People [said] it was kind of hard to understand it.”

Although Schwartz’s disappointment is valid, the record is undeniably difficult to make sense of. According to his explanation of the songwriting process, it was made somewhat purposefully inaccessible, by “having a part that has a hook and then taking it away from the listener. Kind of like withdrawal, or something.”

The record is a musical gauntlet that requires time, patience and practice to appreciate. It offers: a smoky, lo-fi production; muttery, lyrically indistinguishable vocal deliveries; and melodies or structures that manifest quickly, and then abruptly disintegrate into either peculiar passages of distortion or strange blips of synth noise.

Therefore, the mixed or overlooked critical

response it received was moreso a lack of patience than a misunderstanding.

Audiences just didn’t put the work in.

However, Schwartz hopes that the band’s next record, which is already finished and slated for a fall release via Tiny Engines, will be received differently.

“This new record has more of a song vibe to it,” he says. “I’m really excited about how it came out. I’ve showed it to a few close friends, and they say it’s more accessible but still challenging. If that’s the review, then I’m cool with that.”

He explains, “[pleasure suck] just sounded like regular rock songs” going into the studio. It was during post-production that they began to sound “weirder or cooler.” This time around, the band went in with the end goal in mind and was extremely satisfied with the result.

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THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE 8 p.m. Sun., Feb. 18. Club Café, 56 S. 12th St., South Side. $12-14.

412-431-4950 or www.clubcafelive.com

Regardless, The Spirit of the Beehive will most likely continue to be music created by and for outsiders. Schwartz says he doesn’t remember the last time that he sat down and listened to a full album all the way through, and he refrained from listening to any music at all prior to the latest studio time.

“I don’t want to be influenced too much by other stuff,” he says.

The band’s effort to be wholly individual has been apparent on each of its releases so far, and no matter how many ears The Spirit of the Beehive ends up reaching, its popularity doesn’t detract from its being one of the most fascinating rock acts of the decade.

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CRITICS’ PICKS

Mars Jackson

638 Broadway Avenue McKees Rocks, PA 15136 PH: (412) 576-3971

AliyaWrays.com

[WAVE] + SAT., FEB. 17

Club Café is turning into hook city, as three of the finest crafters of earworm melodies and unforgettable bars join forces to throw a toasty winter party. Songwriter Sierra Seller’s dreamy voice and silky timbre will tie your tongue in a knot, get your heart fluttering and your hips grooving. Benji’s skills as a singer, rapper and producer make him a dream; “Mimosa” is the kind of catchy tune to soundtrack your bus ride to brunch — if, that is, you’re comfortable dancing on the bus. You already know Mars Jackson is about to drop a stellar album, and this is your first chance of 2018 to catch him live.

Every one of these artists is going to blow up, so you may as well catch them in an intimate setting, so you can say you knew them back when.

Meg Fair 7 p.m.

56 S. 12th St., South Side. $15.

412-431-4950 or www.clubcafelive.com

If dark, catchy synth pop and new wave tickles your fancy in a way you can’t explain, hold onto your butt. Brillobox will be home to a night of goth-y excellence as Chicago’s dancey synth-wave band WINGTIPS hits the stage, joined by the Windy City’s baritone darkwave crooner Panic Priest. Grand Rapids, Mich., also represents its darkwave scene with the breathy, mysterious Milliken Chamber.

Pittsburgh minimal-wave act, Bring her, and expert goth DJ Erica Scary will also be doing work. I’m already applying my eyeliner and working on my hair tease for this delicious gig. MF 9 p.m.

4104 Penn Ave., Bloomfield. $8.

412-621-4900 or www.brillobox.net

{PHOTO COURTESY OF ALEXUS MCLANE}

[RAP/R&B] + FRI., FEB. 16

[ROCK] + FRI., FEB. 16 Break out the leather harnesses, vinyl skirts and those darling dog collars, baby.

It’s time to enter the Love Dungeon. In the basement of Cattivo, Spish are plotting an interactive art installation around the theme of fetishes, complete with live game shows and performance art. In addition to getting to explore your kinks and fetishes, witness performances

by Jack Stauber (avant-pop), Moon Baby (laidback party-pop queen) and Cousin Boneless (carnival of witchy street folk). There will be free condoms. I repeat: Free condoms! MF 9:30 p.m.

146 44th St., Lawrenceville. $8-10. 412-687-2157 or www.cattivopgh.com

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 02.14/02.21.2018

[MISC.] + MON., FEB. 19 Grab your change. It’s Monday night, and there’s a gig at the Rock Room. As you chow down on inexpensive bar grub and knock back cheap beers, you’re guaranteed to have a good time for under 10 bucks. Music tonight will be provided by Philly/Seattle pop punk act Ramona and Philly post-punks SOLD, with Philly’s Steveo & The Crippling Addictions performing an acoustic set. Go birds, am I right?! Local writes-catchy-punk-songsabout-dinosaurs band FY!D and the straightahead punks of Unreliable Narrator supply locally brewed frequencies. MF 8 p.m. 1054 Herron Ave., Polish Hill. $5. 412-683-4418

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TO SUBMIT A LISTING: WWW.PGHCITYPAPER.COM/HAPPENINGS {ALL LISTINGS MUST BE SUBMITTED BY 9 A.M. FRIDAY PRIOR TO PUBLICATION}

ROCK/POP

DOWNEY’S HOUSE. King’s Ransom. 9:30 p.m.

Robinson. 412-489-5631.

KARMA. Groove Party THE FUNHOUSE @ Aquarius feat. Sun Hound, MR. SMALLS. Centrifuge.

Anjroy & Dayshift. 9 p.m.

Non-genre specific electronic South Side. 844-655-2762. music night showcasing THE LAMP THEATRE. aspiring fresh talent to The Clarks. 8 p.m. Irwin. veterans alike. 9 p.m. Millvale.

724-367-4000.

412-821-4447.

MOONDOG’S. PERLE CHAMPAGNE The Wiley Coyotes.

BAR. Bobby D 8:30 p.m. Blawnox.

Bachata. 10 p.m.

412-828-2040.

Downtown. www. per MOUSETRAP. pa 412-471-2058. pghcitym Gone South. .co RIVERS CASINO. 9:30 p.m. Beaver.

DJ Digital Dave.

724-796-5955.

Levels. 6 p.m. North Side.

REX THEATER. Broccoli 412-231-7777.

Samurai & Flux Capacitor. 9 p.m.

South Side. 412-381-6811.

DJS

THU 15

THU 15

DIESEL. Nora En Pure.

9 p.m. South Side. 412-431-8800.

ROCK ROOM. B-Boys, The Gotobeds, Batzuppel. 9 p.m.

Polish Hill. 412-683-4418.

FRI 16 CATTIVO. Moon Baby. 9:30 p.m.

Lawrenceville. 412-687-2157.

KARMA. BB Guns. 9 p.m.

South Side. 412-481-7227.

KENDREWS. The GRID. 9 p.m.

Beaver Falls. 724-375-5959.

MOONDOG’S. The SPUDS Guinness Toast. 8:30 p.m.

Blawnox. 412-828-2040.

ROCHESTER INN HARDWOOD GRILLE. SpinCycle. 8:30 p.m.

Ross. 412-364-8166.

SEVEN SPRINGS. Shot O’ Soul.

9 p.m. Laurel Highlands.

814-352-7777.

SAT 17 BAJA BAR AND GRILL. Dancing Queen Band. 9 p.m.

Fox Chapel. 412-963-0640.

FULL LIST ONLINE

AN EVENING OF LAUGHTER AND REFLECTION WHERE THE AUDIENCE ASKS THE QUESTIONS

Sunday

MAY 6 7 PM

ON SALE '3*%": BN

FRI 16

ANDYS WINE BAR. DJ Malls Spins Vinyl. 5 p.m.

Downtown. 412-773-8884.

BELVEDERE’S. DJ admc.

Drake night. 10 p.m.

Lawrenceville. 412-687-2555.

THE FLATS ON CARSON. Pete Butta. 10 p.m. South Side.

412-586-7644.

ONE 10 LOUNGE. DJ Goodnight, DJ Rojo.

9 p.m. Downtown.

412-874-4582.

RIVERS CASINO. DJ NIN. Levels. 8 p.m. North Side.

412-231-7777.

RUGGER’S PUB. 80s Night w/ DJ Connor. 9 p.m. South Side.

412-381-1330.

SUN 18 CLUB CAFE. Palm, The Spirit of the Beehive, It It. 7 p.m. South Side.

412-431-4950.

THE R BAR. Billy the Kid’s Steel Town All-Stars. 7 p.m.

Dormont. 412-942-0882.

MP 3 MONDAY {PHOTO COURTESY OF NICK SEYLE}

DISTANT FUTURES

HeinzHall.org (412) 392-4900 Heinz Hall Box Office

LET S GET ’

S CIAL

SAT 17 BELVEDERE’S. sean mc and dj thermos. 90s dance party. 10 p.m. Lawrenceville.

412-687-2555.

BRILLOBOX. Pandemic: Global Dancehall, Cumbia, Bhangra, Balkan Bass. 9:30 p.m.

Bloomfield. 412-621-4900.

DIESEL. DJ CK. 10 p.m.

South Side. 412-431-8800.

PERLE CHAMPAGNE BAR. DJ Tenova. Ladies night.

9 p.m. Downtown.

412-471-2058.

REMEDY. Push It! DJ Huck Finn, DJ Kelly Fasterchild.10 p.m.

Lawrenceville. 412-781-6771.

RIVERS CASINO. DJ Cake.

Levels. 8 p.m. North Side.

412-231-7777.

Each week we post a song from a local artist online for free. This week, it’s the dynamic, jangly rock tune, “Post Office,” by Distant Futures. It’s a sentimental jaunt about love found and lost, served with a hint of Brit-rock sensibilities. Stream or download “Post Office” for free on FFW>>>, the music blog at pghcitypaper.com.

TUE 20 THE GOLDMARK. Pete Butta. Reggae & dancehall. 10 p.m.

Lawrenceville. 412-688-8820.

THE SUMMIT. Dig Now Sounds w/ Hot Honey. 9 p.m.

Mt. Washington. 412-918-1647.

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

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CONCERTS, CONTINUED FROM PG. 29

WED 21 TOM’S DINER/VASTA LOUNGE. RayJack. 10 p.m.

Dormont. 412-531-2350.

HIP HOP/R&B FRI 16 CLUB CAFE. Mars Jackson, Benji Welch, Sierra Sellers.

10 p.m. South Side. 412-431-4950.

KARMA. BBGuns w/ Slugss, mre, Moemaw Naedon, Jack Swing, Romance Nyogu & C.Scott. 9 p.m. South Side.

844-655-2762.

BLUES THU 15 O’DONNA’S. The Bo’Hog Brothers.

8 p.m. Beaver. 878-313-3418.

FRI 16 RUMFISH GRILLE. Jill West and Blues Attack. 7 p.m. Bridgeville.

412-914-8013.

SAT 17 MIKE’S NEW MOON SALOON. The Pawnbrokers. 9 p.m.

Gibsonia. 724-265-8188.

ZANDERS SPORTS BAR & NIGHT CLUB. Jill West and Blues Attack.

9 p.m. Monroeville. 724-387-2444.

JAZZ

Humphries & RH Factor. 8 p.m.

Strip District. 412-281-0660.

FRI 16 WOOLEY BULLY’S. The Bob Vallecorsa Organ Trio w/ Southside Jerry & Bobby Short. 9 p.m. New Brighton.

724-776-6455.

SAVOY RESTAURANT. Roger

KARMA. Funk Factory w/ Cross/ Current and Steeltown Horns.

8 p.m. South Side. 844-655-2672.

ACOUSTIC THU 15

SAT 17

BLACK FORGE COFFEE HOUSE. The Brothers Reed. 6 p.m.

Knoxville. 412-291-8994.

HOP FARM BREWING. The Shameless Hex. 8 p.m.

Lawrenceville. 412-726-7912.

MJ’S STEEL CITY. The Eclectic Acoustics.

7 p.m. Robinson.

724-227-3051.

THE MONROEVILLE RACQUET CLUB. Jazz Bean Live. 7 p.m.

Monroeville. 412-728-4155.

VINES WINE BAR AT HINES WARD’S TAVERN 86. RML Jazz.

7:30 p.m. Cranberry.

412-370-9621. www. per WALLACE’S pa pghcitym TAP ROOM. Tony BAR 3 MILLVALE. .co Campbell Jazzsurgery.

Todd and Dale. 8:30 p.m.

5 p.m. East Liberty.

Millvale. 412-408-3870.

412-665-0555.

BEER HEAD BAR. The Eclectic Acoustics. 9 p.m. North Side.

412-322-2337.

ELWOOD’S PUB. Erin Burkett RUM RUNNERS SALOON. & Virgil Walters w/ Eric Susoeff.

Right TurnClyde. 6 p.m. Ross.

4 p.m. 724-265-1181.

412-847-3300.

FULL LIST ONLINE

FRI 16

SUN 18

MON 19

SAT 17

HAMBONE’S. Ian Kane, Ronnie Weiss & Tom Boyce. Jazz Standards, showtunes & blues. 6:30 p.m.

Lawrenceville. 412-681-4318.

ELWOOD’S PUB. Wendy & The Lost Boys. 8:30 p.m. Rural Ridge.

724-265-1181.

RUSTY GOLD BREWING. The Eclectic Acoustics. 8 p.m.

Canonsburg. 724-485-2332.

SUNNY JIM’S TAVERN. Right TurnClyde. 8 p.m. Emsworth.

412-761-6700.

TUE 20

THU 15

WED 21

RILEY’S POUR HOUSE. Martin Rosenberg. 7 p.m. Carnegie.

412-279-0770.

HEAVY ROTATION

SUN 18 HAMBONE’S. Acoustic Brunch. Acoustic Brunch welcomes all styles of music, poetry, spoken word, comedy in an open mic format.We also have one ‘Feature Artist’ sandwiched in the middle of our show. 10:30 a.m. Calliope Old Time Appalachian Jam. 5 p.m.

Lawrenceville. 412-681-4318.

Here are the songs CP music writer Meg Fair can’t stop listening to: Frankie Cosmos

“Jesse”

MON 19 SMILING MOOSE. Reina del Cid. 6 p.m. South Side. 412-431-4668.

WED 21 GRIFFS GROUNDS COFFEE CAFE. Union Jack. 5 p.m.

Penn Hills. 412-704-5235.

PARK HOUSE. Shelf Life String Band. 9 p.m. North Side.

412-224-2273.

Hop Along

“How Simple”

WORLD MON 19 HOWLERS. Stephen Kent Didgeridoo, Phat Man Dee, Stephen Sciulli. 8 p.m. Bloomfield.

412-682-0320.

Metric

“Soft Rock Star”

REGGAE THU 15 PIRATA. The Flow Band. 9 p.m.

Downtown. 412-323-3000.

SAT 17

KATIE MAHAN, PIANIST. Feat. the music of Gershwin including 3 preludes and a solo version of Rhapsody in Blue. 3 p.m.

Kresge Theater, CMU, Oakland.

412-371-7447.

MR. SMALLS THEATER. The Mega 80’s. 8 p.m. Millvale.

412-821-4447.

REX THEATER. Big Something.

8 p.m. South Side. 412-381-6811.

RIVERS CASINO. Joel Lindsey.

8 p.m. No Bad JuJu. Drum Bar. 9 p.m. North Side. 412-231-7777.

OTHER MUSIC

SAT 17

SUN 18

MITCHELL’S. The Flow Band feat. Finneydredlox, Joe Spliff, Sam Fingers, D Lane & Deb Star.

8:30 p.m. Oakland. 412-682-9530.

CLASSICAL FRI 16 ASHES & SNOW. 11:30 a.m.

WQED, Oakland. 412-622-1300.

THU 15

SAT 17 CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE. The Ensemble performs music composed in the last twenty years in concerts that feature multidisciplinary collaboration, technology, improvisation, and theatrical elements. The Ensemble often highlights the work of students and faculty. 7:30 p.m.

Kresge Theater, CMU, Oakland.

412-268-4921.

THE FUNHOUSE @ MR. SMALLS. Kissing Candice, Awaken I Am. 6 p.m. Millvale. 412-821-4447.

STAGE AE. Machine Head. 7 p.m.

North Side. 412-229-5483.

FRI 16 THE FUNHOUSE @ MR. SMALLS. William Mattheny, Chet Vincent and the Big Bend, Dan Getkin and the Twelve Six, Bindley Hardware Co. 7 p.m. Millvale. 412-821-4447.

CATTIVO. Evolution. 10 p.m.

Lawrenceville. 412-687-2157.

HILLMAN CENTER FOR PERFORMING ARTS. Six Appeal. 7:30 p.m. Fox Chapel.

412-968-3040.

RIVERS CASINO. Nick Fiasco.

8 p.m. Saddle Up. Drum Bar. 9 p.m.

North Side. 412-231-7777.

WED 21 ALLEGHENY ELKS LODGE #339.

Pittsburgh Banjo Club. 8 p.m.

North Side. 412-321-1834.

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 02.14/02.21.2018

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What to do IN PITTSBURGH

FEBRUARY 14-20 WEDNESDAY 14 Architects

MR. SMALLS THEATRE Millvale. 412-421-4447.

With special guests Stick To Your Guns & Counterparts. All ages event. Tickets: ticketweb. com/mrsmalls. 7:30p.m.

Valentine's Day Skate NORTH & SOUTH PARK ICE RINKS. All ages event.

For more info visit allegheny county.us/winterfun. 7:30p.m.

Eric Roberson AUGUST WILSON CENTER Downtown. 412-456-6666.

Tickets: trustarts.org. 8p.m.

#Get Cheeky: A Night w/ City Paper & Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania HARD ROCK CAFE Station Square. 412-481-ROCK. With special guests Lola LeCroix & Chase and the Barons. Over 21 event. Tickets: cooltix.com.

8p.m.

THURSDAY 15 Machine Head

MONDAY 19

STAGE AE North Side.

Tickets: ticketmaster.com or 1-800-745-3000.

Doors open at 7p.m.

Reina Del Cid

SMILING MOOSE South Side.

412-431-4668. With special guests Diamond Shapes, Sam Stucky & Caleb Kopta. All ages event. Tickets: ticketfly.com or 1-877-4-FLY-TIX. 6:30p.m.

Crazy Town JERGEL’S RHYTHM GRILLE Warrendale. 724-799-8333.

With special guests Dematus & Paul Benson. Tickets: ticket fly.com or 1-877-4-FLY-TIX. 7:30p.m.

TUESDAY 20 Paperwhite

JOHN 5 and the Creatures

SWAN LAKE BENEDUM CENTER THROUGH FEBRUARY 25

HARD ROCK CAFE Station Square. 412-481-ROCK. With special guest God Hates Unicorns. Tickets: ticketfly.com or 1-877-4-FLY-TIX. 8p.m.

Photo credit: Duane Rieder

412-456-4800. Tickets: pbt.org.

Through Feb. 25.

Pittsburgh Bleed Black and Gold Tattoo Expo

SHERATON Station Square.

412-261-2000. For more info SATURDAY visit pittsburghtattooexpo.com.

Broccoli Samurai Through Feb. 18.

FRIDAY 16

17

Zoso

STAGE AE North Side.

Tickets: ticketmaster.com or 1-800-745-3000.

Doors open at 8p.m.

& Flux Capacitor

REX THEATER South Side.

412-381-1681. Over 21 event.

Tickets: greyareaprod.com.

9p.m.

From Swing to Rock HEINZ HALL Downtown.

412-392-4900 Tickets: pittsburghsymphony. org. Through Feb. 18.

Big Something REX THEATER South Side.

412-381-1681. With special guest The Clock Reads.

Over 18 event. Tickets: greyareaprod.com. 9p.m.

Ashes & Snow PITTSBURGH OPERA Strip District. 412-456-6666. Tickets: trustarts.org. Through Feb. 25.

Swan Lake BENEDUM CENTER Downtown.

CATTIVO Lawrenceville.

412-687-2157. With special guest Jaye Devine. All ages event. Tickets: ticketfly.com or 1-877-4-FLY-TIX. 6:30p.m.

SUNDAY 18

Travis Greene

Masters of Illusion: Believe the Impossible

MR. SMALLS THEATRE Millvale. 412-421-4447.

All ages event. Tickets: ticketweb.com/mrsmalls. 8p.m.

THE PALACE THEATRE Greensburg. 724-836-8000.

Tickets: thepalacetheatre.org 3p.m.

Scott H. Biram HARD ROCK CAFE Station Square. 412-481-ROCK. With special guests The Hooten Hallers, Demos Papadimas & Bryan McQuaid.

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

An Evening with Cori Thomas & Osama Alomar CITY THEATRE COMPANY South Side. 412-431-CITY. Tickets: citytheatrecompany. org. 5p.m.

Yoga Classes Thursdays, March 8-29, 7:00-8:00 pm North Park Rose Barn and South Park Buffalo Inn

Half-Price Lift Tickets

Every Wednesday from 3:30-9:30 pm Special holiday hours on Presidents Day!

We Know Snow

alleghenycounty.us/winterfun

NEWS

$30 per month for county residents, $40 per month for non-residents Pre-registration required at alleghenycounty.us/parkprograms

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[DANCE]

“THESE MIGRANTS ARRIVED D WITH HIGH DEGREES OF Y, AND RELIGIOUS DISCIPLINE.” LITERACY, MUSICAL FLUENCY,

TECHNO CHATTEL {BY STEVE SUCATO}

INFO@PGHCITYPAPER.COM

KINETIC MOTION 8 p.m. Sat., Feb. 17, and 5 p.m. Sun., Feb. 18. Kelly-Strayhorn Theater, 5941 Penn Ave., East Liberty. $18.

412-568-3382 or www.exhalations.org

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[BOOKS]

PITTSBURGH’S Exhalations Dance Theatre dancers Rachel O’Rorke and Marcella Day {PHOTO COURTESY OF GORDON MANN}

Inventor and author R. Buckminster Fuller once said, “Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons.”

Whether your thoughts on technology — humanity’s savior, its eventual executioner or something else — that debate continues to inspire artists’ works. Exhalations Dance Theatre weighs in with its latest production, Kinetic Motion, Feb. 17 and 18 at the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater.

“Technology is something very relatable and impacts our lives every day,” says EDT artistic director Lea Kasic. “We wanted to do something with this program that not only explored the topic, but also allowed us to use technology to do so.”

The 90-minute multimedia production includes recorded dialogue, video and 3-D projection mapping. It consists of six new 15-minute group dance works by six of the company’s resident choreographers, beginning with Kasic’s contemporary dance work “Currents.” Set to music by Los Angeles band Son Lux, the work, says Kasic, was inspired by “the façade that is projected through our social-mediaconscious society today,” and our struggle to balance sharing our lives with others, while still maintaining some level of privacy.

Next, Ebony Cunningham’s “To Be Everywhere Is to Be Nowhere,” set to music by DeVotchKa, Scanner and Drehz, also focuses on social media, but more specifically, on how it desensitizes realworld relationships in favor of virtual ones.

In Lacey Gibasiewicz’s “Un-Plugged,” dancers use ropes to symbolize the constant connection we have to technology, while Alyssa Mcintyre’s “Everybody Say” turns its attention to the history of photography, from early flash photography to cell-phone selfies.

Broken up into two sections, Nicole Monville’s “glitch:dis:connected” looks at technology’s dehumanizing and humanizing sides. In it, Monville incorporates a black-and-white palette for the work’s opening section, and then uses 3-D mapping of colors onto the dancers’ costumes for its closing section.

Rounding out the program will be EDT founder/executive director Katherine Mann’s “Consume,” danced to music by YouTube sensation, violinist/dancer Lindsey Stirling. As the work’s title suggests, the piece is about media consumption, how it is used as an escape and how it can also warp one’s sense of reality. The work also incorporates 3-D projection mapping onto two large boxes and a TV screen to drive home the very message it warns of.

BLACK HISTORY {BY JODY DIPERNA}

L

OCAL CULTURE vultures know Teenie Harris’ photography from the Carnegie and may have an Erroll Garner LP lurking in their stacks of vinyl. Baseball fans probably know how Cum Posey transformed the Homestead Grays from just another sandlot team into the greatest in the Negro Leagues. But journalist Mark Whitaker is the first to consider the prolific incubator of Pittsburgh’s black community as a whole in his new book, Smoketown: The Untold Story of the Other Great Black Renaissance (2018, Simon & Schuster). Whitaker will talk about his book at Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures series, on Wed., Feb. 21.

Whitaker, a veteran journalist who has worked for CNN Worldwide, NBC, Meet the Press and Newsweek, among others, was at work on his 2011 memoir, My Long Trip Home, when he started really digging into the story of Pittsburgh’s black community.

Whitaker’s father grew up in Homewood, and he made frequent visits to see his paternal grandparents. His grandfather was one of the first black undertakers in the city, the owner of the Whitaker Funeral Home, a long-time fixture in Homewood.

His grandmother ran the Edith Whitaker Funeral home, which operated for many years on Fullerton Street in the Hill, before she moved the business to Beltzhoover. His family research opened the city up to him: There were so many African-American innovators and creators.

The brilliance and vision of publisher

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 02.14/02.21.2018

{PHOTO COURTESY OF JENNIFER S. ALTMAN}

Author Mark Whitaker

Robert L. Vann; the largesse of numbers kingpin and Pittsburgh Crawfords owner, Gus Greenlee; the talents of baseball great Josh Gibson, singer Billy Eckstine, photographer Teenie Harris and playwright August

MARK WHITAKER

LECTURE AND BOOK-SIGNING 7 p.m. Wed., Feb. 21. Carnegie Library Lecture Hall, 4400 Forbes Ave., Oakland. $10. 412-622-8866 or www.pittsburghlectures.org

Wilson. Then, there were the pianists Billy Strayhorn, Erroll Garner, Earl Hines, and Mary Lou Williams; if New Orleans jazz is captained by a trumpet, Pittsburgh jazz is led by a piano. Whitaker was pulling at all

of these individual threads when he started to see them as part of a complete tapestry.

The interconnectivity of Pittsburgh’s black community then came into focus.

The Harlem Renaissance, in the 1920s, was very much the culmination of “the life of the mind,” as Whitaker phrased it, urbane and sophisticated. Whereas the black renaissance in Pittsburgh suited the city itself: Born of commerce and business, it was brawny, corporeal and expressive.

Early on in Smoketown, Whitaker lays the groundwork for black Pittsburgh’s awakening: “As likely as not to have been descendants of house slaves or ‘free men of color,’ these migrants arrived with high degrees of literacy, musical fluency, and religious discipline. … [O]nce they settled in Pittsburgh, they had educational

opportunities that were rare for blacks of the era, thanks to abolitionist-sponsored university scholarships and integrated public high schools with lavish Gilded Age funding. Whether or not they succeeded in finding jobs in Pittsburgh’s steel mills (and often they did not), they inhaled a spirit of commerce that hung, quite literally, in the dark sulfurous air.”

Whitaker is a lifelong jazz fan, and his love of the music shines through in his prose. But, as he told City Paper via telephone, one of the great joys of this book was that he could bring to life some lesser-known, but equally important leaders and creators.

One of those was Robert L. Vann, publisher of America’s premier black newspaper, The Pittsburgh Courier, from the paper’s inception in 1910 until his death in 1940. “Vann was a real visionary,” says Whitaker. “I think because he died so young, and because the Courier went into decline, there is just one academic book about him and that’s it. There are lots of characters in my book who have already been written about a lot, and I hope I do justice to them, but there are people like Vann — they are just as fascinating. When you look at his editorial strategy — from the very beginning realizing that the Cou-

rier had to be a voice for the black community. It started on a local level with editorials and the stories that he covered, but then he increasingly took that national. To realizing that he had to have great writers, great crusading reporting, but also writers who he would promote individually. So he put the names of all these people — Joel Rogers in Ethiopia, Chester Washington reports from the latest Joe Louis fight — he turned these reporters into celebrities.”

Smoketown closes with an elegiac chapter about August Wilson, which also covers the era of industrial decline and the economic deterioration that decimated neighborhoods like Beltzhoover, as well as ill-conceived (one could say malevolent) urban planning that killed the Hill. Those communities still haven’t recovered, and some are in worse shape than ever. Where Edith Whitaker’s funeral home once proudly stood, the entire block is deserted, according to Whitaker.

“And the people stuck in these communities really got screwed. I think that to bring back those neighborhoods is going to require a specific combination of — a specific kind of attention. I don’t want to use the word ‘intervention,’ but it’s almost like that, and I think that it has to be multi-pronged.”

I N F O @PGH C IT YPAPE R . C O M

THIS SATURDAY! FEBRUARY 17, 2018 • AUGUST WILSON CENTER BOX OFFICE AT THEATER SQUARE • 412-456-6666 • GROUP S 10+ 412-471-6930

TRUS TARTS. ORG NEWS

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[BOOK REVIEW]

ON THE STREET {BY FRED SHAW} Jim Daniels continues to be a poet of places and people. Like previous work, his latest collection, Street Calligraphy (Steel Toe Books, 90 pp., $12), often centers on the Detroit of his youth, the speaker’s parents leading the way among the cast of characters. It’s a recipe for success, never feeling formulaic. And with many poems backdropped by a 1970s blue-collar upbringing, it adds a sense of Rust Belt nostalgia, raw and unsentimental.

Daniels, a longtime Carnegie Mellon professor and Oakland resident, is prolific, with 17 poetry books to his credit, as well as screenplays and stories. He consistently treads over familiar but rich themes, rendering the specific into something universal and approachable.

With each new collection, he retains a strong voice while refining the view of his past, finding new angles to consider formative moments.

A favorite, “Up on Blocks,” concerns a neighbor, Danny, who died in Vietnam, and “his car, an absurdly red / Fury, up on blocks on our pocked street / to work on when he got home / but he never did.” Danny’s father, left with the aftermath of loss, is characterized as having “a cough that could maul a lion / but he wouldn’t stop smoking.” Danny’s death gets amplified when “some asshole torched [the car] / a whoosh heard down the block / and his father trembled and collapsed / in the terrible light of the flames.” The palpable emotions here find their counterweight in a speaker looking for separation, “to put on as many miles as I could.”

In “The Macular Degeneration Boogie,” Daniels illuminates the struggles of a nearly sightless mother, “bad magician, / mad scientist, limping dancer, / blind juggler in the kitchen.” With her culinary skills diminishing, the “father lurks / with the fire-extinguisher. / She cuts him a piece of cake / in the shape of the state of / Oklahoma? West Virginia? / He shuts up and eats. / He tells her it is good. / She made him sick last week.” Throughout this work and others, Daniels weaves life’s cruel ironies into something movingly funny.

Street Calligraphy’s poems focusing on Daniels’ children and domestic life feel less resonant than those concerning Daniels’ younger self. But he manages to combine the two in “The Lincoln Death Chair,” about a long-ago field trip gone bad with smuggled rum. In a reversal of roles, he now worries about his ninth-grade son, saying “the idea of him drinking / sprays buckshot into my chest.”

INFO@PGHCITYPAPER.COM

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 02.14/02.21.2018

{PHOTO COURTESY OF CHRIS CHAPMAN}

Kevin Moore and Daniel Pivovar in In the Heat of the Night

[PLAY REVIEW]

WARMED OVER {BY HARRY KLOMAN} PLAYWRIGHT Matt Pelfrey’s stage adaptation of In the Heat of the Night takes place in 1962 in Argo, Ala., eight years after the largely toothless Supreme Court ordered an integrated society, and two years before Congress finally bit down and passed the necessary laws to begin to make it happen.

But really, it takes place in our memory of the still-potent 1967 film, a reworking of John Ball’s 1965 novel. Pelfrey more or less adapts them both in his play, now being staged by Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company, condensing the story into a well-meaning and enjoyable 97minute whodunit that nonetheless strains at its familiarity.

IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT continues through Sun., March 11.

Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company, 937 Liberty Ave., Downtown. $27.50-32.50.

412-377-7803 or www.pghplaywrights.org

It’s hard to watch this play and not think about the film, and maybe ever harder to see it as anything but another rendering of a tale that’s been copiously told in the past half century. No important story ever grows old, and this one is certainly that. But the current production requires more nuance to give us something fresh to take away.

The story revolves around the murder of a real-estate developer whose project will bring jobs to little Argo, a few of which will probably go to the area’s black citizens, who

still live under the weight of now-illegal segregation. That bothers some of the local good ol’ boys, who would rather see white folk get all the jobs — and see black folk lynched like they were in the good ol’ days.

Gillespie (Daniel Pivovar), the town’s big-bellied sheriff, is surprisingly low-keyed in his racism for a man of his time and place.

Some other townspeople — the mayor (Arthur Peden), a cop (Tal Kroser), a restaurant clerk (Adam Seligson) — are not. Then, into their lives comes Virgil Tibbs (Kevin H. Moore), a black police detective from Pasadena, Calif., who’s passing through town, and who helps them investigate the murder, despite the festering resistance that surrounds him.

Director Monteze Freeland makes excellent use of a spare stage, and Piper Clement’s lighting ably focuses our attention. No seat in this theater is more than three rows back, yet most of the actors perform at a volume that could reach a second balcony. It’s deafening at times in a play that could well be as loud as a whisper and still elucidate its point, and it makes the drama’s racism feel too aggressively arrogant when it need only be quietly confident. The result is a story told in black and white through caricatures who never seem to grow or live in the moment.

Not all of the actors fall into this trap.

Peden, shrill as the mayor, is coolly absorbing as a local big shot (some actors play multiple roles), and Seligson modulates effectively for two of his. The standout is Jonathan Visser as an Argo cop who hesitantly begins to like and respect Tibbs. Their relationship often strains, but it still offers some muted hope in the cacophony of national disgrace.

Ronald AllAn-Lindblom • Artistic Director Kim Martin • Producing Director

By David Lindsay-Abaire Directed by kim martin

february 2-18, 2018 box office 412.392.8000 or pittsburghplayhouse.com

I NF O @PGH C IT YPAPE R . C O M

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FOR THE WEEK OF

02.15-02.22.18 Full events listed online at www.pghcitypaper.com FEM_bodied aims to be a different sort of performance-art piece — one curated by black women, for black women, about black women. Rejecting the typical artistic stereotypes in which African-American women are confined, FEM_bodied aims to be more authentic.

Staycee Pearl, curator of FEM_bodied, sees this project as an opportunity to focus in on brown bodies in relation to high art, where they aren’t seen as often as white bodies. “It’s sort of out-of-the-box, and abstract,” Pearl tells City Paper by phone.

“And I think it’s something that a lot of mainstream folks don’t think of African Americans as being a part of.”

“Hunger,” by Corinne Spencer

FEM_bodied, which will take place at the Melwood Screening Room in Oakland, will include a series of short films featuring the work of four black, female artists who have captured the black body in motion.

Through this project, the four artists — Corinne Spencer, Allana Clarke, Alisha Wormsley and Jasmine Hearn — have the chance to give their perspectives as black women, and to show their experiences through first-hand storytelling. Additionally, the films seek to contrast the black female body with those of other races, genders and perspectives.

There will be a workshop before the screening in which each artist will do a 15-to-20-minute session with those in attendance, highlighting an artistic form that relates to the filmed works, including writing, storytelling and movement.

After the films, there will be an artist talk moderated by Pearl, and featuring Deesha Philyaw, a Pittsburgh-based writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Pearl hopes to do more similar projects, and she finds the message it presents to be immensely important. “We’re still not expected to be in certain spaces, or expected to take up a certain genre of art, which is high art,” she says. “We’re expected to be in all these other places.

And the truth is, we are everywhere. We do everything.”

{PHOTO COURTESY OF MATT DAYAK}

^ Fri., Feb. 16: In Bed By Ten

thursday 02.15

BY LAUREN ORTEGO

Workshop begins at noon, brunch reception at 2 p.m. screening is at 3 p.m..

Sat., Feb. 17. Melwood Screening Room, 477 Melwood Ave., Oakland. $7-14.

412-681-5449 or www.cinema.pfpca.org

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 02.14/02.21.2018

JAZZ You’ve likely heard that Pittsburgh was an influential city for the development of jazz, but what were the social and historical conditions that allowed d that scene to flourish?

Here’s your chance to get educated: ted: Screening tonight on WQED is the hour-long documentary, ntary, We Knew What We Had: The Greatest Jazz Story Never ever Told, d produced by the Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild. ld. Jeff Sewald’s film features interviews, archival material terial and more than 20 live performance clips from Pittsburgher ittsburgher performers, including Billy Strayhorn, horn, Mary Lou Williams (pictured), Art rt Blakey, George Benson, Stanley Turrentine ine and Ahmad Jamal. Al Hoff 8 p.m. m.

Thu., Feb. 15 (repeats 7 p.m.

Sun., Feb. 18). WQED-TV

WORDS The University of Pittsburgh’s Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series continues at the Frick Fine Arts Auditorium tonight ght with Hannah Tinti. Tinti co-founded ded the magazine One Story, and her er novel The Good Thief was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Her new ew work, The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley, follows a father and his daughter’s adventure to discoverr one another in

a new light. Lauren Ortego 8:30 p.m. Frick Fine Arts Auditorium, 650 Schenley Dr., Oakland. Free. 412-624-6508

friday 02.16 OUTDOORS This year marks the 3 33rd anniversary of the Allegheny Outdoo Outdoor Sport and Travel Show, which opens today toda at the Monroeville Convention Cent Center. The show includes hunting seminars, camping ca exhibitions and live demonstrations. demonst Seasoned travel professionals profes from as close as Nemacolin, in Farmington, Far Fayette County, to Canada and Africa A will be there to share their wisdom wis with the travel hungry. Also making m an appearance is the Wild, Wild World of Animals show, which specializes in wildlife education. LO Noon-8 p.m.

Also, A 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Feb. 17, and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Feb. 18. 209 Mall Plaza Plaz Blvd., Monroeville. $9-12 (cash only; on children under 12 free).

412-373-7300 or www.sportandtravel.com < Fri., Feb. 16: Remix, Re Respond: Contemporary Ceramic Artists and The Frick Pittsburgh

WINNER of TWO GRAMMY AWARDS!

Best Orchestral Performance & Best Engineered Classical Album

h! h! esh esh Fresh Fresh!

Fres Fre

TITLE SPONSOR

THIS FRIDAY AT 8:00 P.M. THIS SATURDAY AT 8:00 P.M. THIS SUNDAY AT 2:30 P.M. HEINZ HALL

Dave Bennett, clarinet, guitar, piano, vocals Sarah Hicks, conductor

Featuring greatest hits from Benny Goodman, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash and more, you’ll be “In the Mood” to “Sing, Sing, Sing” on Valentine’s Weekend.

BEETHOVEN PIANO CONCERTO 3 NO.

with BRONFMAN

{PHOTO COURTESY OF WILLIAM P. GOTTLIEB/IRA AND LEONORE S. GERSHWIN FUND COLLECTION, MUSIC DIVISION, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS}

^ Thu., Feb. 15: We Knew What We Had: The Greatest Jazz Story Never Told

FRIDAY, FEB. 23 AT 8:00 P.M. SATURDAY, FEB. 24 AT 8:00 P.M. SUNDAY, FEB. 25 AT 2:30 P.M.

ART The Frick Pittsburgh is presenting ceramic work that takes you to the past and firmly seats you in the present. Tonight is the exhibition preview to celebrate the opening of Revive, Remix, Respond: Contemporary Ceramic Artists and The Frick Pittsburgh, an exhibit exploring the 2,000-year-old art of ceramics and showcasing international artists exploring themes from environmentalism to personal memories. Exhibition curator Dawn Brean and artist Beth Lipman, whose work is featured in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, will be giving gallery talks. LO 5:30 p.m.

7227 Reynolds St., Point Breeze. Free. 412-371-0600 or www.thefrickpittsburgh.org

HEINZ HALL

Manfred Honeck, conductor 9iw À v > ] « > BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 3 BRUCKNER: Symphony No. 9

GROSVENOR

SYMPHONIE

PERFORMS

BEETHOVEN PIANO CONCERTO 2 NO.

MARCH 2 & 4

DANCE PARTY Are you too old to stay up late?

Or perhaps you’re a true night owl who is looking to pre-game?

Either way, the place to get your boogie on is the In Bed By Ten {PHOTO COURTESY OF DANI SHAPIRO} DJ-ed dance party, where the ^ Thu., Feb. 15: Hannah Tinti needle drops at 6 p.m. and the last spin is at 9 p.m. The monthly happening is back at Spirit Lodge for 2018, and the good news is that the shindig has moved to the upstairs room, doubling the capacity. As always, the suggested $5 cover, plus 10 percent of the bar take, goes to local charities; tonight, it’s Day One, which works to provide housing, education and support for singleparent families. Remember: No parking on the dance floor. AH 6 p.m. 242 51st St., Lawrenceville. www.inbedbytenpgh.com

HEINZ HALL

MARCH 16 & 18 HEINZ HALL

HONECK

Manfred Honeck, conductor i > À ÃÛi À] « >

KNOX

, LiÀÌ -«> ] V `ÕVÌ À

À> } Ý] ÌÕL>

PROKOFIEV: Symphony No. 5 BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 2 ,#0 é'- Sinfonietta

DEBUSSY: Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun HIGDON: Tuba Concerto (WORLD PREMIERE) BERLIOZ: Symphonie Fantastique

TICKETS START AT $20! GET YOURS TODAY! *GKP\ *CNN $QZ 1HƂEG | 412.392.4900 | pittsburghsymphony.org BRING YOUR GROUP AND SAVE! 412.392.4819

CONTINUES ON PG. 38

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SHORT LIST, CONTINUED FROM PG. 37

EVERYONE IS A CRITIC

{PHOTO COURTESY OF KEVIN YATAROLA}

^ Thu., Feb. 22: Bollywood Boulevard: A Journey Through Hindi Cinema

saturday 02.17

WHEN: Thu.,

Feb. 8

“This [event] was more than I expected. Just to hear [Amanda Lucidon’s] dream, and how she went into photography, was so inspirational. You could feel her spirit, you could feel the love that she had for Mrs. Obama, for the whole administration.

I just loved it, I’m so glad I came. The photography is breathtaking, and some of the things Amanda did speak of, I can identify with, because I do photography also, but I’m not a professional. She has an eye for photography, and a love and respect for people in general, and it is inspiring.

We need more Amandas. This was not an event to miss, so if she’s anywhere else in the city, I would encourage anyone to go out and hear what this young lady has to say. And definitely purchase the book, because she captured her [own] heart in every single one of those pictures.”

B Y LAUR E N ORTEGO

38

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 02.14/02.21.2018

Today the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh opens its The Pigeon Comes to Pittsburgh exhibit, adapted from the popular children’s book, Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, written and illustrated by Mo Willems. The exhibit includes interactive “play and learn” activities: Kids will be able to put on a wearable bus costume and drive around; dress up naked mole rats for their own fashion show; and launch foam hot dogs at The Pigeon. LO 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 10 Children’s Way, North Side. $14-16. 412-322-5058 or www.pittsburghkids.org.

ART

< Sat., Feb. 20: Ashes & Snow

CRITIC: Marla Roebuck, 63, a retired schoolteacher

KIDS

New York performance artists Jennifer Vanilla and Chartrusia will join Pittsburgh’s own performance-art virutosos, the band slowdanger and musician Davis Galvin for Vanilla’s Who Is She tour at the Bunker Projects, in Bloomfield (the space above Roboto). Bunker’s Reese McCardle calls it “visual art that’s activated by the body.” He says it’s a group show with each artist doing their own thing, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a commonality. “Think of it as four pieces of art on the wall that are all independent works, but they speak to each other by careful curation.”

Charlie Deitch 7 p.m. 5106 Penn Ave., Bloomfield. $7-10. 412-779-4617 or www.bunkerprojects.com

STAGE

COMEDY Brooklyn-based comedian, writer and self-described recent discoverer of his own emotions Woody Fu brings his scripted one-man show Asian Gracefully to Acrade Comedy Theater. In it, he riffs on what it’s like growing up not-white and the assorted stereotypes Asian men face. Also: hoarders and why Koreans put eggs on all their food. His recent short film, “Asian Man, White Woman,” took jabs at the paucity of straight Asian males represented on PornHub: “Siri, show me Glen from Walking Dead.” AH 8 p.m. 943 Liberty Ave., Downtown. $12. www.arcadecomedytheater.com

OPERA Come join the Pittsburgh Opera for the world premiere of Ashes & Snow, directed by Jonathan Moore and composed by

Douglas Cuomo. The show is based on a 24-poem cycle used by Franz Schubert in his famous piece “Winterreise,” and will be performed in English with texts projected above the stage. This is Pittsburgh Opera’s second world premiere in the last two years. The work will be sung by Eric Ferring [pictured], who was hailed as one of Pittsburgh’s “Who’s Next in Music” by The Incline. The show is infused with punk energy and acid jazz, creating a new sound to illicit an emotional experience uncommon to opera. LO 8 p.m.

Continues through Feb. 25. 2425 Liberty Ave., Strip District. $45. 412-456-6666 or www.opera.culturaldistrict.org

thursday 02.22

{PHOTO COURTESY OF DAVID BACHMAN PHOTOGRAPHY}

EVENT: Amanda Lucidon discussing Chasing Light: Michelle Obama Through the Lens of a White House Photographer, Carnegie Library, Homewood

In honor of Black History Month, the University of Pittsburgh is bringing in celebrated San Francisco performance artists Rhodessa Jones and Idris Ackamoor and the Pyramids to present Performance Music: Theater for the 21st Century.

The creative minds behind Cultural Odyssey, a touring ensemble that uses original work from artists of various cultural backgrounds, will be bringing their most significant performances tonight at the Charity Randall Theatre. The performances include spoken-word poems and Ackamoor’s tenor and alto sax playing.

LO 7 p.m. 4301 Forbes Ave., Oakland. Free.

412-624-4498 or www.pittarts.pitt.edu

STAGE There are good reasons that popular Indian cinema, known as Bollywood, is so beloved. It offers singing, dancing, colorful costumes, elaborate sets, sweeping vistas and melodrama, often all in the same film. Tonight, celebrate the art form with Bollywood Boulevard: A Journey Through Hindi Cinema, in which a live cast traces the evolution of Bollywood — from black-and-white classics to more contemporary blockbusters.

In a YouTube promotional video, co-creator Rushi Vakil explains: “It is going to appear as if they are watching a live 3-D movie.” AH 7:30 p.m. Byham Theater, 101 Sixth St., Downtown. $30-50. 412-456-6666 or www.trustarts.org

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IT TURNS OUT STRIP-CLUB FOOD AND BAR FOOD IS THE SAME THING

FRESH FUDGE {BY ALEX GORDON} If the term “chocolate moonshine” whets your appetite for a sweet, boozy treat, sorry to say you’re out of luck: It’s just a fun name. Fudge is the focus at Chocolate Moonshine Co., which opened its fourth brick-and-mortar location, in Lawrenceville, earlier this month. (Fans of the summer festival Picklesburgh might remember its inventive pickle-and-fudge lollipops.)

{CP PHOTO BY JAKE MYSLIWCZYK}

Fudge at Chocolate Moonshine Co.

The menu offers classic fudge flavors, like Belgian chocolate and French vanilla, alongside more adventurous takes like key lime and pecan turtle; fudge is sold by the pound.

If you’re not into the traditional block-form of fudge, you can check out the Moonshine Fudge Bars, which come in themed mix-and-match packages of 10. There’s a Cafe-Au-Lait collection with two bars each of the Latte Macchiato, Mocha Madness, Dark Espresso, Hazelnut and Amaretto.

The “It’s 5 O’Clock Somewhere” pack (once again, just wordplay) features Pink Champagne, Black Cherry Bourbon, Irish Cream, Piña Colada and Mojito flavors. Customized packs of four or 10 are also available online.

Stop by in the next few weeks, and you can indulge in the new gourmet “secret recipe” hot chocolate and the debut of the shop’s small-batch gelato.

Or stop in any time to get acquainted with some free samples.

And the name, by the way, comes from an old story about neighbors mistaking a basement fudge-cooking operation for a secret moonshine distillery. The joke stuck and provided the outfit with its tagline: “illegally good.”

ALEXGORDON@PGHCITYPAPER.COM

3703 Butler St., Lawrenceville. 412-600-7860 or www.chocolatemoonshine.com NEWS

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{CP PHOTOS BY VANESSA SONG}

Bacon cheeseburger with fries, at Blush

POLE FOODS {BY ALEX GORDON}

I

HAD NEVER eaten at a strip club

before last month, but I’d thought about it: What percentage of guests actually order food? What are the menus like? What’s the etiquette for eating in front of a professional dancer trying to make a living?

The chef at Cheerleaders would later tell me that about 20 percent of guests order food, but the rest I’d figure out for myself.

Over a couple weeks starting in January, my girlfriend, Jes, and I visited three local clubs to get a feel for what the gentlemen’s-club food scene is like.

Diligent restaurant reviews require numerous visits at different times of day and ordering from all parts of the menu, but I’m not a restaurant reviewer, so we did not do that. We visited each club

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Fried things and sauces to dip them in.

But the menu at Blush goes well beyond that, with soups, wraps, pizza and salads, plus a generous helping of innuendo.

The sandwich section is called “Between Buns.” Appetizers are listed under the banner of “Mini Lap.” FOOD: Giant soft pretzel, chicken quesadilla, burger and fries VERDICT: The pretzel and quesadilla were nothing more or less than you’d want or expect. I definitely felt a little weird about eating while the dancers were at work — we were in the front row and didn’t want to appear uninterested, so we kept the tips flowing and applauded excessively between bites. The burger, served with a pierogi on top, was fantastic. Perfectly cooked and well assembled, the latter of which feels important

once, at times convenient for our schedules, and ordered what we wanted. It’s an imperfect approach, but it’s honest.

Blush 135 NINTH ST., DOWNTOWN TIME/DATE: 6 p.m. Fri., Jan. 26 NOTES: It was early for the Blush crowd, but there were some dudes in suits hanging around drinking Stella and mingling with the dancers. No one was eating. Jes thought the upbeat U2 song playing when we walked in was a weird choice to dance to. I joked that at least it wasn’t “With or Without You.” More on that later.

Though I do own a Dutch oven and tried octopus one time, I am far from a gourmand, so the sort of bar-grub typical to strip clubs is right up my alley.

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POLE FOODS, CONTINUED FROM PG. 39

Street tacos, at Cheerleaders

because ketchupy onions running down the cheek of an audience member must be off-putting for the dancers. It certainly would be for me.

dancers often eat the food, and when they do. He wrote back, “Before, during & after. They love the food, our Brisket Street Tacos.” I understood that “during” meant “during the shift,” but for a moment, I imagined a young woman eating a brisket 3100 LIBERTY AVE., STRIP DISTRICT taco while swinging from the pole. There’s TIME/DATE: 5:30 p.m. Wed., Jan. 31 no way. The meat would fall out.

NOTES: Once again we arrived early and FOOD: Honey hot wings, potato skins were among the first cusVERDICT: I’m not a big fan tomers. The security guard of potato skins but these was very friendly. No one had a great balance of was eating. The stage was crispiness and doughy posurrounded by the bar, tato texture. Plus, bacon, so guests have to crinkle sour cream and cheese up the cash and throw it are always dependable to the dancers. The third teammates. The wings dancer came out to U2’s were righteous. I felt self“With or Without You” and aware about not getting goddamn, was I wrong. She sold the hell any sauce on my face. I know the dancout of it. ers didn’t care and likely can’t even see A week later I emailed Cheerleaders’ it, but anxiety is a weird thing. I used a chef, Floyd Wade Chambers, to see if the lot of napkins.

Cheerleaders

BACON, SOUR CREAM AND CHEESE ARE ALWAYS DEPENDABLE TEAMMATES.

Chicken tenders, at Spearmint Rhino

Spearmint Rhino 1620 PENNSYLVANIA AVE., MANCHESTER DATE/TIME: 8 p.m. Fri., Feb. 2 NOTES: Our Lyft driver was tickled by the club’s address (“like the White House”).

The Penguins game was on. We sat at the bar, which put our backs to the dancers.

People were eating. The bar was nearly full with people watching the game. This menu was a bit shorter than the previous two clubs, but all the heavy hitters were there.

FOOD: Mac-and-cheese bites, cheeseburger, waffle fries VERDICT: The mac-and-cheese bites, served with ketchup, could have used a little spice or kick somewhere. But then again, they are deep-fried clumps of cheese and macaroni, so not much to complain about. The burger hit all the right spots.

I know it’s not the most challenging dish, but this was above average for any bar.

The accompanying waffle fries achieved

an ideal consistency, crispy without being too greasy. With the game on and the bar situated as it was, this visit felt the most like a Friday night at a sports bar. The service was great.

CONCLUSION: So, it turns out strip-club food and bar food are the same things.

What I did find surprising was how much the dancers on the floor support the dancers on the stage, which I thought was pretty nice. I guess it’s good for business, but it seemed pretty genuine. Overall, the visits provided some lovely date nights and a decent excuse to eat fried food on the clock. Some of our dishes were terrific, and none of them were bad; I’d eat any of them again.

A couple weeks after the last meal, I found out that other Spearmint Rhino locations serve breakfast and now I can think of nothing else.

Next time.

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DISPELLING DRINKING MYTHS

TORTILLAS MADE FRESH DAILY!

Myth: Different drinks get you drunk in different ways. {BY DREW CRANISKY} AS ANY bartender will tell you, there is a whole lot of misinformation out there when it comes to drinking. Here are a few common myths — and why they simply aren’t true.

Beer before liquor, never sicker. Despite a total lack of scientific evidence to support it, the “beer before liquor” myth marches on. Any alcoholic beverage contains ethanol, the chemical compound that makes you drunk. The only thing that determines how inebriated you become — and how crummy you feel in the morning — is how much ethanol you ingest, not the order of your drinks.

The myth likely lives on because, after a few beers, shots start to seem like a good idea. And it’s easier to make up a cute rhyme than acknowledge that your splitting headache is your own damn fault.

Different drinks get you drunk in different ways. A related myth is the idea that certain types of alcohol get you different types of drunk — “wine makes me happy drunk,” “tequila makes me crazy,” and so on. Again, ethanol is ethanol.

The idea that it affects you differently depending on how you ingest it is all in your head. Perhaps tequila is mentally linked to college party days, and therefore inspires a wilder evening.

Beer should be served ice cold. As Randy Mosher writes in Tasting Beer, “American industrial beers have been formulated to taste best at lip-numbingly cold tempera-

tures, but no specialty beer should ever be served at anything approaching these temperatures.” Coldness dulls flavor and aroma. This is great for a can of Coors Light, but only does a disservice to craft beer.

Depending on the style, Mosher recommends a beer serving temperature between 38 and 55 degrees Fahrenheit.

Packaging indicates quality. To the delight of the Don Draper set, slick branding can influence just about anyone. But don’t let it shape your drinking choices too much. Cans, once the domain of bottomshelf beer, have recently been embraced by craft brewers, who are more likely to put your favorite hazy IPA in a pounder can than a boring brown bottle. Plenty of great wine is now packaged in screw-top bottles, and there are more decent boxed wines than ever before. And some of the best rum I’ve ever tasted comes in plain (even downright ugly) bottles.

There are rules to drinking wine. To an outsider, the wine world can seem stuffy and unapproachable. But as celebrated wine writer Jancis Robinson says, “The main point of wine is to give pleasure, not to generate social confusion and angst.”

Studying wine is rewarding (more fun than, say, algebra), and learning more about wine can certainly enhance your drinking experience. But you needn’t get caught up in particulars to enjoy a glass of vino. If you prefer red wine chilled, or like white wine with your steak, then go for it.

YOU NEEDN’T GET CAUGHT UP IN PARTICULARS TO ENJOY A GLASS OF VINO.

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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: UPSIDE DOWN NEGRONI

VS. Fire Side Public H House 6290 Broad St., East Liberty DRINK: Do. Or do not. There is no try.

INGREDIENTS: Beefeater gin, Campari, prosecco, grapefruit, rosemary OUR TAKE: Campari and grapefruit combine to make the bitterness of this cocktail the forefront of its flavors. Prosecco adds lift, while distributing the oils of the piney rosemary.

Streets on Carson 1120 E. Carson St., South Side DRINK: La Befana INGREDIENTS: Gin, sage, Cocchi Americano, Campari, lime OUR TAKE: Pleasantly floral and soft, this take on the negroni is much more delicate than its classic cousin. The bitterness of the Campari provides a little dimension, but doesn’t overwhelm.

Check out City Paper ’s Blogh for local food news and assorted tidbits. www.pghcitypaper.com

One Bordeaux, One Scotch, One Beer Graham Cracker Porter, Allegheny City Brewing $6.50/pint “ “The texture of this porter was incredibly smooth and that lent tto it being highly drinkable (be careful!). The graham cracker ccame through as a little bit nutty and with a hint of cinnamon, a and honey made it feel like a treat without being overly sweet.”

RECOMMENDED BY CELINE ROBERTS

Graham Cracker Porter is available at Allegheny City Brewing in the North Side.

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 02.14/02.21.2018

FINAL REEL {BY AL HOFF}

YOU COULD LIVE THE REST OF YOUR LIFE WITHOUT SEEING PART THREE AND BE PERFECTLY FINE

Today, only the fans of classic movies are likely to know who Gloria Grahame was.

The actress was often cast as the sultry femme fatale in memorable film noirs, such as In a Lonely Place and Sudden Fear; she was twice nominated for an Oscar — for 1947’s Crossfire and The Bad and Beautiful (1952), which she won. But by the late 1970s, Grahame was mostly working on stage, surviving on the fumes of her once-golden days.

Annette Bening, as Gloria Grahame

That’s where Paul McGuigan’s Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool catches up with Grahame, here portrayed by Annette Bening. It’s 1981, and she collapses backstage while performing in the United Kingdom. After being released from the hospital for “gas” (so she says), she winds up with an ordinary family whom she knows in Liverpool.

The story is told in a non-linear fashion, so it takes a scene or two to sort out that Grahame’s connection to the family is the twentysomething son and aspiring actor Peter Turner (Jamie Bell). He and Grahame had met three years earlier in London, as neighbors. Turner is entranced — this is a bona fide Hollywood star — and Grahame is lonely and eager for flattering male attention. The two develop a relationship, that while lopsided by age, money and social status, still manages moments of sublime connection.

Adapted from Turner’s memoir, Film Stars is not a bad story, though I’m not sure it’s well served by McGuigan’s bouncing around in time. At times, it’s more like a collection of scenes, some of them quite charming or affecting. Bening and Bell get tipsy and dance in her flat to the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, and it’s adorably dorky. (There’s extra pleasure in seeing Billy Elliott’s Bell do some poor, if enthusiastic, booty-shaking.) And there is a fine cast that also includes Julie Walters, Stephen Graham, Vanessa Redgrave and Kenneth Cranham. But it’s really Bening and Bell who sell this; Bening is especially good, calibrating Grahame’s magnetic presence with her crippling vulnerability.

Like other star-crossed lovers and actors before them, Grahame and Turner delight in quoting Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and damned if those shouldbe-hackneyed scenes don’t work. Now opening Fri., Feb. 23.

We’ll always have Paris: Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson

FREE AT LAST {BY AL HOFF}

J

AMES FOLEY’S conclusion of the Fifty Shades saga, Fifty Shades Freed, opens with a wedding. The bride, Anastasia (Dakota Johnson), is wearing white lace, the groom, Christian (Jamie Dornan), two days stubble. The ceremony is taking place in what looks like a very airy office lobby, to which a wall of roses has been added.

Perhaps it’s a metaphor for this trilogy: two pretty people, somewhat out of sync, behaving in an utterly predictable manner, in a series of high-end staged spaces.

Because when it’s all said and done, this “shocking” and “naughty” light-bondage mommy porn has turned out to be the same old heteronormative, socially approved journey: Man and woman meet, get married and have a family. Appending spanking sessions, fancy boats and bizarre criminal subplots is just window-dressing.

But at this point, the only reason to tune in is to see what completely idiotic outside force now threatens our two love-

repeated comments are to be taken seriously, one was only hired because he’s fine.

(Fact check: He is.)

I sooooo wanted this film to be deliciously bad and not the perfunctory dull chipped-chopped tedium it was. I had so few laughs, though a good one was when Ana pulled a couple of “perfectly cooked” steaks out of the oven — mmm, baked steak. Or when she just discovered Christian had a plane. Or when Ana shows up at the bank to get $5,000,000 in cash and the manager says, “Do you have identification?”

Mostly, I felt committed to seeing this film, because I’d invested the time in the first two, but honestly, I think you could live the whole rest of your life without seeing part three and be perfectly fine. In the final scene, as Ana and Christian walk out of the frame and into their domestic bliss, remember: It is not they who are freed, but us.

birds. After all, they still live in the same bank-lobby apartment and do the same squabble-then-make-up-sex thing. I guess, there’s some new slinky dresses and frilly underwear to slip out of, but one them is still wearing the same artfully torn jeans (looking at you, Christian!)

FIFTY SHADES FREED DIRECTED BY: James Foley STARRING: Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan

After a European honeymoon, Mr. and Mrs. Grey return to Seattle where they are at once on the receiving end of bizarre threats: car-stalked by a Dodge SUV; a rando message (“You owe me a life”); a physical assault. There is also a bomb (!), and later a kidnapping, a ransom demand and a slap so hard that it puts one character in a coma. And all this while the Greys have several security guards — though, if the

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HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS. It’s back to Hogwarts for Harry and his magical compatriots, despite a warning that terrible things are going to happen. Chris Columbus directs this 2002 film, starring Daniel Radcliffe. Feb. 16, Feb. 18, Feb. 20, Feb. 22, Feb. 24 and Feb. 26-27. Row House Cinema

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HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN. Harry Potter is ready to return to school with his wizard pals, but learns that the dangerous wizard Sirius Black has escaped from prison and is probably coming after him. Alfonso Cuarón directs this 2004 outing. Feb. 16, Feb. 18-19, Feb. 21, Feb. 24 and Feb. 26. Row House Cinema

BALLERINA’S TALE. Nelson George’s 2015 documentary profiles Misty Copeland, who was the first African-American woman to be named principal dancer of the legendary American Ballet Theater. Starts Fri., Feb. 16. Harris BLACK PANTHER. The much-anticipated adaptation of this corner of the Marvel universe finds T’Challa, a.k.a. Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), returning to his African nation of Wakanda and to an inevitable power struggle. Michael B. Jordan and Lupita Nyong’o help head up an ensemble cast; Ryan Coogler (Creed) directs. In 3-D, in select theaters. Starts Fri., Feb. 16

HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER’S STONE. A young boy learns he’s a wizard and heads off to Hogwarts School. Chris Columbus’ 2001 film is the start of an epic magical journey. Feb. 18-19, Feb. 21, Feb. 23-24 and Feb. 27-28. Row House Cinema

EARLY MAN. This animated family comedy from Aardman Animations (Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run) looks back at the wayback days, when wooly mammoths roamed the earth and humans lived in caves. Tom Hiddleston and Maisie Williams supply voices; Nick Park directs. Starts Fri., Feb. 16

Early Man

CLOSE-UP. An Iranian man is mistaken for a wellknown filmmaker and exploits this handy confusion, convincing a wealthy Tehran family that they are the subject of his next film. Then his ruse is discovered and he is sued by the family. In 1990, filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami recreated the story, using the actual participants, who play themselves.

In Persian, with subtitles. 6 p.m. Sun., Feb. 18.

Regent Square

THE INSULT. In contemporary Beirut, an insult blows up into a court case, pitting a Lebanese Christian against a Palestinian refugee. Ziad Doueiri’s drama is nominated for this year’s Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards. In Arabic, with subtitles. Starts Fri., Feb. 16. Manor OSCAR SHORT FILMS. They may be “short” films, but you’ll still need to book some time to catch the more than dozen which are nominated this year for an Academy Award. Fortunately, they are broken up into four separate programs — Live Action, Animated and two sets of Documentary — and most are booked through March 1.

The Live Action group offers films from the U.K., Germany, Australia and two from the U.S., including “DeKalb Elementary,” about a school shooting. Among the Animated nominees is “Dear Basketball,” which features some musings and highlights from basketball great Kobe Bryant. The Documentary shorts include: “Edith + Eddy,” about an elderly biracial couple; “Heroine(e),” about the opioid epidemic, and set in Huntingdon, W.Va.; and “Traffic Stop,” about the traffic stop of an African-American teacher that escalated.

The Live Action and Animated programs run through March 1, at Regent Square. The Documentary programs run through Feb. 25.

Check www.cinema.pfpca.org for complete schedule and times.

This month’s Documentary Salon will cover the nominated short docs, on Fri., Feb 16, at Regent Square. Program A begins at 6 p.m., and Program B is at 8 p.m. Salon members admitted at half-price. Discussion after the screening at the 61B Café, across the street.

The Rangos Giant Cinema is also showing the Live Action and Animated programs, from Feb. 16-22. Check www.carnegiesciencecenter. org for complete schedule and times. (Al Hoff)

ONGOING THE 15:17 TO PARIS. Clint Eastwood directs this docudrama, which recounts the event of Aug. 12, 2015, in which three young American men traveling by train to Paris thwart a potential terrorist attack on board. The men — Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos and Anthony Sadler — play themselves.

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HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE. In Mike Newell’s 2005 film, Harry and the gang compete in the Tri-Wizard Tournament, and the wizarding world expands to track events beyond Hogwarts. Feb. 18, Feb. 20, Feb. 22-24 and Feb. 27.

Row House Cinema

HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX. In David Yates’ 2007 film, Harry’s lifelong nemesis — the evil wizard Lord Voldemort — has been restored to his corporeal form. It’s all hands on deck. Feb. 19, Feb. 21, Feb. 25-26 and Feb. 28.

Row House Cinema HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 1. In David Yates’ broody 2010 adaptation of the seventh Potter book, Harry frets about his upcoming and inevitable one-on-one showdown with evil wizard Voldemort. Feb. 19, Feb. 21. Feb. 25-26 and Feb. 28. Row House Cinema

The 15:17 to Paris PETER RABBIT. Will Gluck directs this digitally animated version of Beatrix Potter’s much-loved tale about a charmingly clad rabbit and a very attractive (if fenced off) vegetable garden. James Corden supplies the voice of the mischievous bunny.

REPERTORY GHOST. Her true love dies, but he returns as a pottery-wheel-friendly ghost. Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze star in Jerry Zucker’s 1990 romance. 12:15 and 9:45 p.m. Wed., Feb. 14, and 2:15 p.m. Thu., Feb. 15. Row House Cinema OBVIOUS CHILD. In Gillian Robespierre’s sweet, offbeat 2014 rom-com, an aspiring standup comedian Donna (Jenny Slate) finds a drunken hook-up with the not-her-type Max (Jake Lacy) leading to something more, including an unexpected pregnancy. But this hot-button issue is the catalyst for the film’s larger narrative, a sometimes raunchy, rough-edged but heartwarming coming-of-age story about a bright but unfocused twentysomething. It’s a journey that involves parents, friends, work, romantic relationships and, yes, Planned Parenthood. 3 p.m. Wed., Feb. 14, and 5 p.m.

Thu., Feb. 15. Row House Cinema (AH)

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 02.14/02.21.2018

SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD. This 2010 film follows twentysomething Pilgrim (Michael Cera) as he tries to balance playing in a band, dating a 17-year-old schoolgirl, and the pursuit of new-girlin-town Ramona Flowers. To date Flowers, Pilgrim must battle her baggage — and some of his own — against an earnest backdrop of Toronto video arcades, clubs, record stores and thrift shops. Director Edgar Wright has created an alterna-rom-com for a frenzied, intertextual, pop-culture world: a pastiche of graphic-novel panels brought to life, video-game fight sequences, action-film sendups and Seinfeld homage. 5 p.m. Wed., Feb. 14, and 7:15 p.m. Thu., Feb. 15. Row House Cinema (Aaron Jentzen) IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT. In this 1934 romantic comedy from Frank Capra, a news reporter (Clark Gable) pursues a runaway rich girl (Claudette Colbert) through Depression-era America. Times grow so lean that the mismatched pair are forced to chastely share a motel room (separated by a hanging blanket, or “the Wall of Jericho”), but you won’t be surprised to learn the pair transcend their differences. 7:30 p.m. Wed., Feb. 14, and 9:45 p.m.

Thu., Feb. 15. Row House Cinema

THE LAST MATCH. In Antonio Hens’ 2013 drama, two young Cuban men fall in love, but their relationship is tested by the country’s poverty and its less-than-enlightened attitudes about homosexuality. Screens in conjunction with Reel Q. In Spanish, with subtitles. 7 p.m. Mon., Feb. 19.

Alphabet City, 40 W. North St., North Side. Free. www.alphabetcity.org HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE. Harry, Hermione and Ron strengthen the bonds of their friendship — and work to prevent real catastrophe — in David Yates’ 2009 adaptation of the penultimate book in the series. Feb. 20, Feb. 22-23, Feb. 25 and Feb. 27. Row House Cinema HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 2. “The boy who lived, come to die.” Fourteen years, more than 4,000 pages and nearly 20 hours of movie all boil down to this critical meeting, when Harry goes wand to wand with his sneering nemesis, Lord Voldemort, in David Yates’ 2012 film. Feb. 20, Feb. 22-23, Feb. 25 and Feb. 28. Row House Cinema T-REX. Drea Cooper and Zackary Canepari’s 2015 documentary profiles 17-year-old Claressa “T-Rex” Shields, a boxer from Flint, Mich., who dreams of winning a gold medal in the Olympics. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion and a Q&A. 6:30 p.m. Wed., Feb. 21. Eddy Theater, Chatham University campus, Shadyside. Free. www.justfilmspgh.org

A LOOK AT FIVE PLAYERS WHO FOUND GREENER PASTURES AFTER THEY WERE ESCORTED OUT

HISTORY LESSONS This week in Pittsburgh Sports History {BY CHARLIE DEITCH}

Arlen Specter

FEB. 15, 2008 In a move to prove that Pittsburgh Steelers football is the most important thing in the country, U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) calls for an investigation into the NFL’s handling of Spygate. For the three people who don’t know, Spygate involved the New England Patriots improperly videotaping other teams to learn their plays. Many fans claim it cost the Steelers a trip to the Super Bowl that year.

This case was one of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s first “thorough” investigations, and the evidence was quickly destroyed. Specter later said: “What is necessary is an objective investigation.

And this one has not been objective.”

FEB. 16, 1952 Pittsburgh Pirates skipper Honus Wagner calls it a career when he retires after spending 55 years in professional baseball as both a player and a coach — 53 of those with the Pirates.

FEB. 16, 1984 Tony Dungy is promoted to the Steelers defensive coordinator. It was his first coordinator position and thus the first step on his road to becoming the Super Bowlwinning coach of the Indianapolis Colts.

{CP FILE PHOTO}

Will Andrew McCutchen find success after leaving Pittsburgh like so many before him?

POST SCRIPTS

FEB. 18, 1949 West Virginia University men’s basketball team had won 57 straight home games when they played the Pitt Panthers this night in Morgantown. The streak would end in a nail-biter with WVU losing 34-32.

FEB. 18, 1961 During a match with Pittsburgh’s own Bruno Sammartino at the Sunnyside Gardens in Queens, N.Y., professional wrestler Chick Garibaldi died in the ring.

According to reports from the time, Sammartino body-slammed Garibaldi and noticed that his opponent’s eyes rolled back into his head. It was later ruled that Garibaldi died of a heart attack.

FEB. 19, 2012 In what may be one of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ last brilliant offseason moves, the team sends two low-level prospects to the New York Yankees for A.J. Burnett.

Burnett would leave in the offseason because the Pirates failed to make him a qualifying offer, but would return in 2015. He remains one of the most beloved Pirates in recent history.

{BY CHARLIE DEITCH}

W

ITH THE TRADE of Andrew

McCutchen to San Francisco and Gerrit Cole to Houston, the Pirates have officially re-entered the bad old days.

You know, those seasons when the team sucked, had little hope of making the postseason and all the players you loved — the ones who kept you coming to the ballpark despite the team’s horrid performance — were traded away or allowed to leave in free agency. Already, McCutchen and Cole are gone, and it’s hard to imagine guys like Josh Harrison and Francisco Cervelli surviving the season in Pittsburgh if the Bucs get into full “rebuilding” mode.

But it’s not all bad news. At least not for the players who were shipped out.

Here’s a look at five players that found

greener pastures after they were escorted out of the ’Burgh.

John Wehner The Pittsburgh native is a beloved hometown boy who made a bit of a splash when he entered the majors in 1991. Unlike others on this list, Wehner was never a superstar. He was, however, a dependable utility player and crowd-favorite. After the 1996 season, Wehner was placed on waivers by the Pirates. In 1997, he was acquired by the Florida Marlins helmed by his former coach, Jim Leyland. Nothing much happened after that. Well, except, for the Marlins winning the World Series. Wehner returned to the Pirates two seasons later, and his ring was the closest most in the organization at that time would get to any World Series’ trinkets.

Jose Bautista This one just hurts. “Joey Bats” played for the Pirates between 2004 and 2008. He was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays in 2008 and, by 2010, he’d become a monster: a murderer of baseballs. Bautista had 54 homers that year and 124 RBI. After that, he’s become a six-time All-Star, a frequent MVP top-10 vote getter, and has won three silver-slugger awards (given to the best player at each position).

Aramis Ramirez Unlike Bautista, where maybe the Pirates didn’t see the potential, Ramirez had already posted a season hitting 34 homers and 112 RBI. He was basically given away to the Chicago Cubs in a 2003 trade. He went on to hit more than 30 home runs in each of the next three seasons. He

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Aramis Ramirez

made two All-Star games, was consistently in the MVP discussion and won a silver slugger. The Pirates did bring him back in 2015; he retired at the end of the season.

Jason Schmidt This right-hander showed a lot of promise with Pittsburgh between 1996 and 2001. Which is why it made perfect sense when he was traded to San Francisco during the 2001 season. Schmidt’s ERA plummeted, and he began winning a lot of games. He nearly won the Cy Young Award in 2003 and placed fourth in that race the following year. He was also a three-time All-Star. On a side note, the Pirates got pitcher Ryan Vogelsong in that trade. Vogelsong didn’t work out, but after stints in Japan and Philadelphia,

he rejoined the Giants and won two World Series with the team.

Freddy Sanchez Second baseman Freddy Sanchez didn’t do much for the Pirates during his time there. (Please note: This is more sarcasm). Actually, Sanchez made three All-Star teams, was in the top 20 in MVP voting once, and won the National League batting title in 2006. He was traded to San Francisco in the middle of the 2009 season and, in 2010, he was part of a Giants team that won their first World Series since 1954. When the final out came, TV cameras caught a jubilant Sanchez, who was playing second base, toss his glove and yell, “We won the World Series!” Here’s hoping Cutch has the same experience in the ballpark by the bay.

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[THE CHEAP SEATS]

UNTRUE COLORS

ever. But we thought Faneca was in for the whole ride. Although I’m sure when he makes it into the Hall of Fame in the next few years, he’ll be going in a Steeler.

{BY MIKE WYSOCKI} WE ALL KNOW the rules about crying in baseball — you don’t do it.

But there is no such edict in the world of hockey and football. On a night when former Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury returned to Pittsburgh, and Steelers linebacker Ryan Shazier, who suffered a spinal-cord injury in a game last year, stood on his own two feet, even the most grizzled Steel City denizen likely gave in to a round of tears.

Tears for Shazier weren’t surprising.

Even a person who didn’t care about sports would celebrate that moment. But the return of Fleury brought emotion because a familiar face was playing in a Las Vegas Golden Knights uniform. Fans who cheered for the young 29er for almost 15 years were in the unenviable position of having to root against him.

So, where does the appearance of Fleury in an opposing team’s uniform rank in modern Pittsburgh sports history?

It was odd to see Barry Bonds as a San Francisco Giant, but he left on his own terms and wasn’t exactly embraced (and didn’t win championships), unlike Fleury. Bonds’ departure even cush-

4. Rod Woodson as a Baltimore Raven This one stung a little more, because unlike the others on the list, Woodson was playing for a hated division rival.

The greatest Steeler who doesn’t have a Super Bowl ring was past his prime, but you still hated seeing him high five Ray Lewis after a tackle.

3. Marc-Andre Fleury as a Las Vegas Golden Knight

{CP PHOTO BY LUKE THOR TRAVIS}

Marc-Andre Fleury in his Penguins uniform

ioned the blow of seeing Bobby Bonilla as a Met and Andy Van Slyke as a Phillie.

Same thing with Jaromir Jagr, who’s worn many different uniforms against the Penguins. His returns were met with boos and even the occasional under-used

The wounds are still fresh as we saw the organization’s all-time best goaltender try to stop Crosby and Malkin from scoring. Even the Fleury haters, who called for his benching every time he had a bad game, seemed to admit they were wrong and gave The Flower his proper respect. It was even hard to completely enjoy the Penguins win.

2. Andrew McCutchen as a San Francisco Giant It technically hasn’t happened yet, but brace yourselves for impact. In May, Cutch will return to the PNC outfield hoping to lower the Jolly Roger. It’ll be odd to see Gerritt Cole as a Houston Astro, but while we liked Cole, we liked him as more of a friend. We loved Andrew McCutchen and still do. Every time Kyle Crick gives up a walk or allows an inherited runner to score, we will be reminded that this is what we got in exchange for a legend.

1. Franco Harris as a Seattle Seahawk Alan Faneca

hiss. Since you know we here at Cheap Seats love to list stuff, let’s take a look at the five most jarring incidents of a Pittsburgh sports legend wearing another team’s uniform, ranked from the least devastating to the most.

5. Alan Faneca as a New York Jet A Super Bowl champion and one of the best offensive linemen to wear black and gold, seeing Faneca wearing that green jersey was just weird. We took it harder than Plaxico Burress or Santonio Holmes moving to the Big Apple, because we knew they probably wouldn’t stay for-

Nearly 40 years after it happened, it still seems unreal. Hall of Famer Franco Harris’ Immaculate Reception was the exact turning point of the Steelers conversion from losers to winners. Seeing Franco in a Seahawks uniform was equally, if not more, shocking than 49ers fans seeing Joe Montana as a Chief, or Giants fans seeing Willie Mays in a Mets jersey, or the entire nation of Canada watching Wayne Gretzky put on an L.A. Kings sweater. It was unthinkable to realize that Franco’s Italian Army would have to transfer their post on the Confluence to the banks of the Puget Sound. At the time, the Seahawks were still expansion chumps, and Harris only played eight games. Perhaps it’s best if we pretend it never happened.

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If you thrive in a fast paced deadline oriented environment and want to join a dynamic and fun media team then this is the opportunity for you. Pittsburgh City Paper is seeking a Digital Business Development Exec., that will secure new clients for the CP Digital Portfolio of advertising and marketing products within the Pittsburgh region. As a DBD Executive at Pittsburgh City Paper, you will conduct sufficient outbound cold calling, spend time in the field meeting with SMB’s and create successful advertising and marketing campaigns that help clients reach their goals and ensure renewal.

RESPONSIBILITIES: • Identify new business opportunities, aggressively pursue them and close new business.

• Provide strategic advice around the customer journey, as it applies to SMBs in the Pittsburgh Region • Understand and comprehend the digital advertising landscape

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Email resume to Justin@pghcitypaper.com • No Calls Please. EOE NEWS

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SENIORITIS

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

ACROSS

1. Premsyn target, for short 4. ___ law (computing term stating processor speeds will double in two years) 10. Bud holder?

14. Server’s second chance 15. Riot’s stage 16. Letter sign-off 17. Bird providing lean meat 18. Urge to move the Doomsday Clock closer to midnight?

20. Cadaver’s importance?

22. 2018 NFL Hall of Famer Terrell 23. Military chopper 24. Resistance measurements 27. You can’t find anything in it 28. Shrugged comment?

31. App with a split fare feature 33. Poem’s contraction 34. Show off fancy footwork in a food fight?

39. ___-majeste 41. Show to one’s seat 42. Cutting remark?

43. Demonstrate cold weather?

47. Trio in Turin 48. Pour beers 49. Got angry 52. Tire inflation meas.

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55. Whips, chains, etc.

57. Salad or pasta 58. “You don’t need to remind me” 60. All the crap a small amphibian owns?

64. Choice to have Norwegian flatbread with or without lutefisk?

67. Have an outstanding bill 68. Bits at the bottom of a wine bottle 69. South Dakota’s capital 70. Fish on a bagel 71. 2017 World Series winner, for short 72. First-___ (recently elected politician) 73. Electronystagmography specialist

DOWN

1. Academy newbie 2. Office document 3. Stallion 4. Toledo minor league ball player 5. Like some jacks 6. “Carmina Burana” composer Carl 7. Right-hand page 8. Spanish “that” 9. Place where 32Down stops: Abbr.

10. Easy pace 11. Musical sounds 12. Facebook invitation 13. Like a melting ice cream sandwich

19. Stalin’s first name 21. Brief gag 25. Poet Langston 26. Award won by Adele in ‘13 28. Home wrecker of children’s stories 29. Mule’s lack 30. Bumps and bruises 32. Travelers to 9-Down: Abbr.

35. Clock-setting abbr.

36. Overdrawn 37. Kilkenny land 38. Put the pedal to the metal 40. No. that you can dial at any time during a voice menu 44. “What a tangled ___ weave” 45. Not affiliated with

any party: Abbr.

46. Return to the original settings 50. Ex-Disney CEO Michael 51. There were nine of them in Super Bowl LII 52. Adderral doses 53. Clay pigeons 54. Read between the lines 56. Quarter-eater on the street 59. ___-buco 61. Unlikely to budge 62. “Bingo!”

63. Reading material 65. Make a choice 66. Thanksgiving dessert {LAST WEEK’S ANSWERS}

FOR THE WEEK OF

Free Will Astrology

02.14-02.21

{BY ROB BREZSNY}

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): The posh magazine Tatler came up with a list of fashionable new names for parents who want to ensure their babies get a swanky start in life. Since you Aquarians are in a phase when you can generate good fortune by rebranding yourself or remaking your image, I figure you might be interested in using one of these monikers as a nickname or alias. At the very least, hearing them could whet your imagination to come up with your own ideas.

Here are Tatler’s chic avant-garde names for girls: Czar-Czar; Debonaire; Estonia; Figgy; Gethsemane; Power; Queenie. Here are some boys’ names: Barclay; Euripides; Gustav; Innsbruck; Ra; Uxorious; Wigbert; Zebedee.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Now that you have finally paid off one of your debts to the past, you can start window-shopping for the future’s best offers. The coming days will be a transition time as you vacate the power spot you’ve outgrown and ramble out to reconnoiter potential new power spots. So bid your crisp farewells to waning traditions, lost causes, ghostly temptations and the deadweight of people’s expectations. Then start preparing a vigorous first impression to present to promising allies out there in the frontier.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): At 12,388 feet, Mount Fuji is Japan’s highest peak.

If you’re in good shape, you can reach the top in seven hours. The return trip can be done in half the time — if you’re cautious. The loose rocks on the steep trail are more likely to knock you off your feet on the way down than on the way up.

I suspect this is an apt metaphor for you in the coming weeks, Aries. Your necessary descent may be deceptively challenging. So make haste slowly!

Your power animals are the rabbit and the snail.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright made a few short jaunts through the air in a flying machine they called the Flyer. It was a germinal step in a process that ultimately led to your ability to travel 600 miles per hour while sitting in a chair 30,000 feet above the earth. Less than 66 years after the Wright Brothers’ breakthrough, American astronauts landed a space capsule on the moon. They had with them a patch of fabric from the left wing of the Flyer. I expect that during the coming weeks, you will be climaxing a long-running process that deserves a comparable ritual. Revisit the early stages of the work that enabled you to be where you are now.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): In 2006, five percent of the world’s astronomers gathered at an international conference and voted to demote Pluto from a planet to a “dwarf planet.” Much of the world agreed to honor their declaration. Since then, though, there has arisen a campaign by equally authoritative astronomers to restore Pluto to full planet status. The crux of the issue is this: How shall we define the nature of a planet? But for the people of New Mexico, the question has been resolved. State legislators there formally voted to regard Pluto as a planet. They didn’t accept the demotion. I encourage you to be inspired by their example, Gemini. Whenever there are good arguments from opposing sides about important matters, trust your gut feelings. Stand up for your preferred version of the story.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Ray Bradbury’s dystopian bestseller Fahrenheit

451 was among the most successful of the 27 novels he wrote. It won numerous awards and has been adopted into films, plays and graphic novels. Bradbury wrote the original version of the story in nine days, using a typewriter he rented for 20 cents per hour. When his publisher urged him to double the manuscript’s length, he spent another nine days doing so. According to my reading of the planetary configurations, you Cancerians now have a similar potential to be surprisingly efficient and economical as you work on an interesting creation or breakthrough — especially if you mix a lot of play and delight into your labors.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Poet Louise Glück has characterized herself as “afflicted with longing yet incapable of forming durable attachments.” If there is anything in you that even partially fits that description, I have good news: In the coming weeks, you’re likely to feel blessed by longing rather than afflicted by it. The foreseeable future will also be prime time for you to increase your motivation and capacity to form durable attachments. Take full advantage of this fertile grace period!

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): In 2004, a man named Jerry Lynn tied a batteryoperated alarm clock to a string and dangled it down a vent in his house. He was hoping that when the alarm sounded, he would get a sense of the best place to drill a hole in his wall to run a wire for his TV. But the knot he’d made wasn’t perfect, and the clock slipped off and plunged into an inaccessible spot behind the wall. Then, every night for 13 years, the alarm rang for a minute. The battery was unusually strong! A few months ago, Lynn decided to end the mild but constant irritation. Calling on the help of duct specialists, he retrieved the persistent clock. With this story as your inspiration, and in accordance with astrological omens, I urge you Virgos to finally put an end to your equivalent of the maddening alarm clock. (Read the story: tinyurl.com/alarmclockmadness.)

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Was Napoleon Bonaparte an oppressor or liberator? The answer is both. His work in the world hurt a lot of people and helped a lot of people. One of his more magnanimous escapades transpired in June 1798, when he and his naval forces invaded the island of Malta. During his six-day stay, he released political prisoners, abolished slavery, granted religious freedom to Jews, opened 15 schools, established the right to free speech and shut down the Inquisition. What do his heroics have to do with you?

I don’t want to exaggerate, but I expect that you, too, now have the power to unleash a blizzard of benevolence in your sphere. Do it in your own style, of course, not Napoleon’s.

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

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SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): “Trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit,” said French playwright Molière. I’m going to make that your motto for now, Scorpio.

You have pursued a gradual, steady approach to ripening, and soon it will pay off in the form of big bright blooms. Congratulations on having the faith to keep plugging away in the dark! I applaud your determination to be dogged and persistent about following your intuition even though few people have appreciated what you were doing.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): The growth you can and should foster in the coming weeks will be stimulated by quirky and unexpected prods. To get you started, here are a few such prods. 1. What’s your hidden or dormant talent, and what could you do to awaken and mobilize it? 2. What’s something you’re afraid of but might be able to turn into a resource?

3. If you were a different gender for a week, what would you do and what would your life be like?

4. Visualize a dream you’d like to have while you’re asleep tonight. 5. If you could transform anything about yourself, what would it be? 6. Imagine you’ve won a free vacation to anywhere you want.

Where would you go?

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): You may think you have uncovered the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But according to my analysis of the astrological omens, you’re just a bit more than halfway there. In order to get the rest of the goods, you’ll have to ignore your itch to be done with the search. You’ll have to be unattached to being right and smart and authoritative. So please cultivate patience. Be expansive and magnanimous as you dig deeper.

For best results, align yourself with poet Richard Siken’s definition: “The truth is complicated. It’s two-toned, multi-vocal, bittersweet.”

Confess, brag and expostulate about what inspires you to love. Got to freewillastrology.com and click on “Email Rob.”

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Savage Love {BY DAN SAVAGE}

I’m a 24-year-old nonbinary person living in Florida. I have two wonderful girlfriends. One I have been with for four years (we live together). The other I have been with for a year and a half. They’re both brilliant, interesting and kind. Both relationships have their issues, but they are minor. They know each other but aren’t close. Neither is interested in people besides me right now, although my longer-term girlfriend identifies as poly. They have both said that they see a future with me, but something doesn’t feel right. I’ve been having fantasies about leaving them both. It’s not about wanting to find someone I like better — if I met someone I really liked, I could pursue it. I just feel like neither relationship can progress while both exist. My other friends are getting married. I don’t think I want to stay in this setup indefinitely.

Even if my girlfriends liked each other, which they don’t, I don’t want sister wives or two families. But I also can’t imagine choosing between them. I feel like a scumbag for even thinking about it. I’ve talked to them, and they are both having reservations about the current situation. Neither of them wants some kind of threeperson family structure, either. The only thing I can think to do (besides running away) is wait and see if one of these relationships fizzles out on its own.

Are my fantasies of escape normal?

Is wanting to be with “the one” just straight nonsense?

is out there somewhere. But despite the fact that there are no perfect matches, people are constantly ending loving relationships that could go the distance to run off in search of “the one” that doesn’t exist. As I’ve pointed out again and again, there are lots of .64s out there and, if you’re lucky, you might find a .73 lurking in the pile. When you find a serviceable .64 or (God willing) a spectacular .73, it’s your job to round them up to “the one.”

(And don’t forget that they’re doing the same for you — just as there’s no “the one” for you, you’re no one’s “the one.” Everyone is rounding up.)

Zooming in on your question, ENBY, you say what you have now — two girlfriends who can’t stand each other — is working.

Are you sure about that?

While fantasies of escape are normal — we all spend time thinking about the road we didn’t take, the door we didn’t try — it’s odd to hear someone with two girlfriends wish for one or both to disappear. Perhaps it’s not who you’re doing that’s the problem, ENBY, but what you’re doing. The kind of polyamory you’re practicing — concurrent and equal romantic partnerships — may not be right for you.

I’m not trying to YDIW you here (“you’re doing it wrong”), but if you’re envious of your friends who are settling down with just one partner, perhaps you’d be more comfortable in an open-not-poly relationship (sex with others OK, romance with others not OK) or a hierarchical poly relationship (your primary partner comes first, your secondary partner[s] come, well, second).

Finally, ENBY, it could be the stress of having two partners who don’t like each other that has you fantasizing about escape and/or one of your partners evaporating. Each of your girlfriends might make sense independently of each other, but if having to share you doesn’t

SINCE YOU WERE PLANNING TO TELL YOUR PARENTS EVENTUALLY, THE DRAMA IS INEVITABLE.

ENGAGED NOW BUT YEARNING

“The one” is nonsense, ENBY, but it’s not straight nonsense — lots of queer people believe that “the one,” their perfect match,

work for them … it’s never going to work for you.

I’m 27 years old and I’ve been married to my partner for two years. I’m facing a conundrum: A relative sexually abused me when I was younger. It happened a handful of times, and I’ve never told anyone other than my partner. I’m now struggling to decide not whether I should tell my parents (I should), but when. The abuse messed me up in some ways, but I have been working through it with a therapist. The problem is my siblings and cousins have started having their own children, and seeing this relative — a member of my extended family — with their kids is dredging up a lot of uncomfortable memories. I see this relative frequently, as we all live in the area and get together as a family at least once a month.

I don’t have children of my own yet, but my partner and I have already decided that this relative will never touch or hold the ones we do have. So, do I tell my parents now?

My extended family is tightly knit, and I fear the issues that sharing this secret will inevitably create. Am I starting unnecessary drama since I’m not even pregnant yet?

MY FAMILY KINDA SUCKS

Your kids may not yet exist, but your young nieces, nephews and cousins do — and your abuser has access to them. So, the drama you fear creating isn’t unnecessary — it’s incredibly necessary. And since you were planning to tell your parents eventually, the drama is inevitable.

But let’s say you wait to tell your parents until you have children of your own — how will you feel if you learn, after the curtain goes up on this drama, that this relative had sexually abused another child in your family (or multiple children in your family, or children outside your family) in the weeks, months or years between your decision to tell your parents and the moment you told them?

On the Lovecast, a scientific study on gay cuckolding: 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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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 02.14/02.21.2018

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A BRIEF RUN {CP PHOTOS BY JAKE MYSLIWCZYK}

Hundreds of revelers stripped down to their underwear on Feb. 10 and headed to the North Side for a good cause. Cupidâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Undie Run is held annually to raise money to help fight neurofibromatosis, a genetic condition that causes tumors to form in the brain, spinal cord or nervous system. The mile-long run is held in more than two dozen cities, and this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s effort raised a reported $140,000 locally.

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 02.14/02.21.2018

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HALF-O

FF

APPESELECT WHE TIZERS ELHO AT USE

HAPPY HOUR

HOSTED BY T-ROBE

a

FUNNY

MONDAY–THURSDAY

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5PM–7PM & 10PM–11PM

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GAMBLING PROBLEM? CALL 1-800-GAMBLER. Must be 21 years of age or older to be on Rivers Casino property. Acts subject to change. Artist’s performance may contain adult-themed or suggestive material. See RiversCasino.com for details.