October 5, 2022 - Pittsburgh City Paper

FIRSTSHOT

BY PAT CAVANAGH

Protestors march through Downtown Pittsburgh during the

The Voice” rally, in support of Iranian women on Sat., Oct. 1.

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BY JORDAN SNOWDEN CPCONTRIBUTORS

SAÏD, AKA FAROOQ AL-SAID, is adamant that he would still be in jail today if he didn’t have God on his side. The rapper, activist, and director of operations at 1Hood Media was arrested when he was 17 for an altercation that, if sentenced, would have meant 28 years of incarceration. A Toronto native, Saïd was sent to an immigration facility and celebrated his 18th birthday in solitary confinement.

“Going through therapy, I realized how much that changed my life,” he says. “The last two years, specifically the last calendar year, I’ve been the worst version of myself that I’ve ever been. There was a lot of trauma that I didn’t realize that I was finally dealing with … This album was so important to me because I found unhealthy ways to express it.”

to songs. He recalls watching Paula Abdul on TV and greatly admiring Prince. The first rap he learned was Eric B. & Rakim’s “Microphone Fiend.”

In eighth grade, Saïd’s English teacher overheard him freestyling with friends at lunch.

“She said, ‘You use a lot of colorful lan guage in your rap,’” explains Saïd. “I said, ‘I know, it’s rap.’ She was, like, ‘I love it, I love how you express yourself.’”

That album, Revolutionary But Gorgeous ( RBG ), released this year on his birthday, Sept. 16, via 1Hood Media, unintentionally became a healthy outlet for Saïd and his emotions. The 10-track project is a follow-up to his 2020 LP The Kid With The Golden Arms, and uses oldschool hip-hop elements and free-flow ing, honest rhymes to share Saïd’s expe riences with depression, social justice, incarceration, and Black resilience.

“All the content, everything on the album, is everything I’ve struggled with,” says Saïd. “To me, it was like going back in time and being completely honest with a lot of things I was involved with.”

And so Saïd’s teacher made a deal with the budding musician. She would provide him with vocabulary words at the beginning of each week, and he would be allowed to rap in front of the class on Friday, but he had to use all the new vocab words.

“Hip hop has given me every oppor tunity I have right now, more or less. It’s my therapy, my decompression, my joy, my sorrow,” says Saïd. “The things that I experienced and found in the spectrum of hip hop are integral to me.”

After beating his charges and being released from jail, Saïd went straight into the music industry. Within two years, he had a record deal with Universal Music and Godsendant Music Group under the moniker Ayatollah Jaxx and writing credits on Billboard charting tracks. This was a linear career trajectory dating back to before Saïd’s arrest. He was making waves and connections in the music world at a young age, but, as Saïd says: “The younger me had a problem for every solution.”

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GOING BACK IN TIME

RBG exists, and Saïd is not currently behind bars for his teenage altercation, because his case ended in a mistrial.

“The police ended up tampering with my evidence, and I walked,” explains Saïd. “God kept giving me these alley-oops. Right after that, my best friend got shot in the head. God was like, ‘See what I mean? I’m giving you these opportunities. If you don’t want to listen, I gave you a sign on what’s about to happen to you.’ That kind of forced me into the music industry because it was either that or the streets.”

Saïd was always drawn to, and had ties with, the music world. One of the ways he learned English — Saïd’s first language is Arabic — was by singing or rapping along

“There’s that overlap between the streets and hip hop. I got introduced to the music industry because I shook the right hands,” he says. “When I was 15, I had a record that I ghostwrote for this R&B group go to no. 23 on the Billboard charts. So [at that age], I had this idea that I was going to go into the music business, but I was super involved in the streets. But God kept giving me alleyoops to get out.”

ALLEY-OOPS

Since 2018, Saïd has been a member of the socially conscious local arts organization 1Hood Media, where he is now the director of operations. At 1Hood, Saïd does every thing he can to build liberated communi ties through art and social justice.

“Those are two components that are part of my being,” he says.

After quitting rap completely in 2010 — he says he felt disenfranchised with the music industry — Saïd, the son

“All the content, everything on the album, is everything I’ve struggled with.”

of a former Black Panther father and a mother granted political asylum from Lebanon, set his sights on using hip hop to uplift, inspire, and educate youth, much like it did for him as a kid. He didn’t plan on making another album, but when Saïd started going through a heavy period in his life, hip hop, as it has proven to be time and time again, was the strength he didn’t realize he needed.

“I started writing out all these feelings and had all these instrumentals from the guy who produced the album, Hobbes [Duendes], who also came out of 1Hood,” says Saïd. “[RBG] was a passion project, something that I wanted to get off my chest, and I just had this platform and artist medium to do it. I wouldn’t say I’m back in the music industry. This felt like a piece of work that needed to be shared with people.”

In 2019, Saïd lost his mother and his daughter shortly after that. Those deaths, compounded with unresolved past trauma, caused Saïd’s mental health to plummet.

Saïd made it a point to note that he doesn’t want his daughter’s death to be a selling point for the album. Instead, he talks about the experience because it happened, and because it impacted him.

“It gave me something to talk about in terms of what mental health looks like for Black men, specifically Black men in their 30s,” explains Saïd. “I really think this album is special because I give an aspect of Black male vulnerability that we haven’t really seen yet, and I’m not sacrificing anything for it.”

Revolutionary But Gorgeous brings up topics and discussions that aren’t hap pening, and Saïd wants people to listen to the album not because he thinks it’s great (although he certainly does) but because he believes it can help.

“The album is a conversation that Black people should be having,” he says. “It’s revolutionary but gorgeous.”

•

CP PHOTO: JARED WICKERHAM Pittsburgh musician and activist Saïd, aka Farooq Al-Said

“I really think this album is special because I give an aspect of Black male vulnerability that we haven’t really seen yet, and I’m not sacrificing anything for it.”

“So many people in my life felt victim to this spiral that I was in,” he says. “That’s why the title is Revolutionary But Gorgeous , because revolution is never pretty, but liberation is. And if I can lib erate myself from myself, then that’s revolutionary and gorgeous.”

NEWS

BUS PASS

BY ALICE CROW // INFO@PGHCITYPAPER.COM

MORE THAN 500 DRIVERS illegally passed station ary Pittsburgh school buses during a two-month period this summer, according to a pilot program imple mented by the city’s public school system. Officials say a self-funding artificial intel ligence camera system could bring this number down.

The violations were recorded by cameras installed on the outside of 19 Pittsburgh Public School buses by Virginia-based tech company BusPatrol, with which the school board approved a long-term contract during a public meeting in late August.

The program calls for the installation of 11 cameras on each of the district’s 160 buses, with seven outside to monitor

the road, and four inside to monitor the passengers and bus drivers. The installa tions are set to be complete by the end of October, school officials say.

Director of Pupil Transportation Megan Patton says the problem of motor ists ignoring bus stop signs has been a longstanding concern for the district. When BusPatrol reached out, Patton says, school officials saw an opportunity to address the problem.

“Drivers and crossing guards would report that they were seeing these issues,”

Patton tells Pittsburgh City Paper . “It is something they were wanting to do for a time, and it took us a few months to actu ally start the process and get a trial period set up, which occurred towards the end of last school year and over the summer.”

Ellen Diaz Taffel and Eric Keller are both parents of PPS students and have lived in Stanton Heights for more than a decade. They say Stanton Avenue is known by neighbors as a danger ous road, where, they say, despite a 25 mph speed limit, it is common for cars to drive above 40 mph and not stop for pedestrians.

“Some drivers can certainly be jerks, but it was almost above and beyond sometimes,” Keller recalls. “I can’t tell you how many times the bus driver would just lean on the horn because people were going around. They have no other recourse.”

Diaz Taffel has seen this kind of driving endanger students, as well as other drivers.

“I think we’ve seen near-accidents

as well because cars will go across the double yellow line to get around a bus and then there is another car coming,” Diaz Taffel says.

Both parents believe the problem is distracted driving.

“It doesn’t mean it’s any better that you’re daydreaming while you’re cruising past a school bus with lights on, but these were people that stopped behind the bus, got impatient, and then zoomed around it,” Keller says. “These were people who knew they should stop yet still went around.”

Over the course of the five-year con tract, the company will play an active role in citation management, according to Patton. The AI technology used by the cameras captures video and other

PHOTO: COURTESY OF BUSPATROL Cameras installed by BusPatrol on the sides of school buses can capture the license plate information of drivers.

information such as time, date, and GPS location while the bus is running.

Through a multi-step process, video is accessed by a software system that gathers information and determines if a violation event occurred. Then, data and footage can be sent to a human reviewer. This technology allows a reviewer to look at thousands of events per day.

PITTSBURGH PUBLIC SCHOOLS

From there, BusPatrol can share information with local law enforce ment who will issue a citation. The first violation will be a warning, while repeat offenders can expect to receive a $300 fine, five points added to their driving record, and a 60-day license suspension.

Inside the buses, the old internal cameras are also being replaced by BusPatrol technology. The monitoring of footage will also be handled by the company, but the school district can access the footage at any time. According to the Director of Public Relations for PPS, Ebony Pugh, the new cameras will provide better coverage with updated technology.

School officials say the program is free to the district because BusPatrol offers a violator-funded business model.

The money issued from a $300 fine will be split between all partners, with the state and the local police department each pocketing $25 and the remaining $250 split between BusPatrol and PPS under a confidential agreement.

The district is also using its website and social media platforms to help drivers familiarize themselves with the laws sur rounding how to interact with school buses on the road.

According to PennDOT, drivers must stop at least 10 feet away from school buses when the red signal lights flash and the stop arm extends. Drivers must also slow when yellow lights flash. Vehicles can only resume driving when lights stop flashing and the stop arm detracts.

BusPatrol claims its program also deters repeat offenders, with partici pating districts set to see the rate of violators drop 20-30% in the first year.

For those that do receive a violation, BusPatrol claims 99.8% of them do not repeat the offense. Drivers issued cita tions can also contest tickets or contact BusPatrol’s call center for violator support.

PPS staff like Patton say this program is a no-cost option to improve student safety with no clear downside.

“The safety of our students is top pri ority, especially after watching the pilot video,” she said. “It is very scary how many drivers don’t obey the school buses.”

PHOTO: COURTESY OF BUSPATROL BusPatrol works with school districts across the country to stop drivers from illegally passing school buses when stop sign arms are extended.

MUSIC

DIY DEATH CLUB

BY SARAH CONNOR INFO@PGHCITYPAPER.COM

F OR GIOVANNI ORSINI and J.J. Young, the Pittsburgh music scene is all about creating an inclusive community. That’s why in February 2019, Orsini, a metal guitarist and singer in the bands Giovanni Orsini and the Inebriators, Fortune Teller, and Natural Rat , started the music collective Steel City Death Club with the help of Young and some other friends in the Pittsburgh alt-rock scene.

Death Club began with the intention of being a record label for small local alternative artists, but quickly grew into something more multi-faceted.

The collective hosts live shows, has a studio in the Allentown neighborhood of Pittsburgh where bands can record and mix, and has a series called Live at SCDC which chronicles live recordings of local and national bands from the studio in a style similar to Seattle radio station KEXP’s popular live sessions.

Steel City Death Club currently rep resents 15 bands, including Water Trash, BITE , Ugly Blondes , Nate Cross , and Tough Cuffs, in addition to all of the bands with which Orsini is involved.

“I would say [Death Club is] a Pittsburgh local music community group.

Basically, just like a very DIY-spirited attempt on trying to create platforms and more ‘industry’ things,” Orsini says.

“We wanted to create a very DIY, passion ate, for-the-love-of-the-game group of people and artists and, really, just for the crafts that we’re involved in, where we don’t need to pay money to play shows.” Orsini and Young, who is a drummer in the bands Fortune Teller, Melt, BITE, Nate Cross, and Mind Mother, have been involved in the Pittsburgh music scene since they were both students at Upper St. Clair High School. Orsini, now 24, shares that the “pay-to-play” model

PHOTOS: COURTESY OF GIOVANNI ORSINI

he and Young, now 26, were introduced to when they first started performing encouraged them to create their own way of playing shows.

In a pay-to-play gig, bands have to purchase a number of tickets from the promoter, and then sell them in order to play the show. If they don’t sell all of the tickets, that money comes out of their own pockets.

STEEL CITY DEATH CLUB

“That’s a commonplace, and I get it, from a business perspective, but we just got tired of it, so we just kind of swore them off and only did DIY shows and it ended up working,” Orsini says.

Orsini and Young discuss “the scene” when they talk about Death Club and the bands in the club. “The scene” refers to the local, do-it-yourself music community — groups of bands who set up shows in Oakland basements, suggesting specta tors pay a donation of $5-10 at the door, but no minimum ticket sales are involved. This way, bands get to play without the stress and financial burden of ticket selling, and local music lovers can see stacks of bands play at a low price.

A typical DIY show in the Pittsburgh scene will look like this — college stu dents and young adults, packed tightly in a basement with a makeshift stage, plenty of Pabst Blue Ribbon, and a whole lot of sweat. The exact locations of these venues remain anonymous to the public due to the lease violations and potential noise complaints that come with DIY house shows. However, despite the secrecy, the shows have had staying power in the Pittsburgh scene with new, eccentricallynamed house venues popping up every year. Names of past venues include the

Bushnel, the Jelly Fox, Cafe Verona, and Ba Sing Se. Most, if not all, of the Steel City Death Club members met through playing and attending shows in this scene.

Death Club hosts plenty of DIY base ment shows like this, but also has been able to put on shows at venues like Thunderbird Cafe and Mr. Smalls Theatre without the pay-to-play model. This is made possible through selling tickets directly to fans online through Eventbrite and sponsorships.

Up next for Death Club are new Live at SCDC episodes, new music from multiple bands, and a Music Night on Fri., Oct. 14 featuring Ugly Blondes, Melt, and Water Trash at Bottlerocket Social Hall.

For the Death Club members, having the opportunity to play these shows in a welcoming, but still passionate and dedi cated environment is an inspiring and creative opportunity.

“A lot of the people that I know who are in bands, including myself, they went to school for something totally different from playing music, so for a lot of those people, music and playing shows is like their escape,” Young says. “All those [people] have so much passion and pro fessionalism that drives them, with the only incentive being that they want to do it, and I think that in and of itself is a good reason to want to care about the DIY scene and Death Club.”

As Death Club continues to grow and the scene bolsters, Orsini and the rest of the club see a future filled with more thrashing music and an expand ing community.

“These kinds of spaces are extremely important because these are spaces that foster creativity and create some of my favorite shows of all time,” Orsini says. “We just want to make it possible to play and to experience this, and it’s so impor tant to all of us.” •

"A lot of the people ... went to school for something totally different from playing music , so for a lot of those people, music and playing shows is like their escape.”

THE FEARLESS BENJAMIN LAY

BY AMANDA WALTZ // AWALTZ@PGHCITYPAPER.COM

WHERE TO BEGIN WITH Benjamin Lay? Maybe the fact that history has over looked such a fascinating figure, a man before his time, an 18th-century aboli tionist whose fiery opposition to slavery rivaled that of later, more famous advo cates like John Brown.

As the book The Fearless Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Dwarf Who Became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist by Marcus Rediker demonstrates, his legacy most likely fell victim to those in charge of writing history in the first place, leaders and record-keepers intent on painting him as an unhinged menace to the status quo. This is, after all, a man dismissed for the extreme antics he used to shame Quakers into denouncing slavery, which ranged from kidnapping to stabbing a Bible filled with “blood.”

Luckily, Marcus Rediker, an author and University of Pittsburgh professor whose expertise covers early American and Atlantic maritime history, with a par ticular focus the slave trade, felt obligated to honor Lay in a 224-page biography.

indentured servitude that would inform much of his activism.

Lay and his wife, Sarah, would then settle in Philadelphia, where he added to his unusual mythos by taking to a “cave-like dwelling” and producing All Slave-Keepers That Keep the Innocent in Bondage, Apostates , an anti-slavery book published in 1738 by statesman Benjamin Franklin.

THE FEARLESS BENJAMIN LAY:

The Quaker Dwarf Who Became The First Revolutionary Abolitionist Club by Marcus Rediker. beacon.org

Anyone going into The Fearless Benjamin Lay should be prepared for a thorough, dense look at not only Lay, but the influences that shaped him, pri marily Quakerism. Readers will not find a narrative-driven, Erik Larson-type work that takes liberties with history

for entertainment purposes. Nor does Rediker need to resort to such creative measures — he has the story of the “Quaker comet,” a radical unafraid to demand freedom for all people even when his own rights were threatened (as outlined in the book, Lay’s fellow Quakers even tried to prevent him from marrying as punishment for his actions).

RELUCTANT IMORTALS

BY AMANDA WALTZ // AWALTZ@PGHCITYPAPER.COM

RELUCTANT IMMORTALS

by Gwendolyn Kiste. simonandschuster.com

Rediker traces Lay’s life from his 1682 birth in Essex, England to the travels and experiences that would combine his reli gious beliefs with not only abolitionism, but vegetarianism and animal rights (he walked everywhere because he “opposed the exploitation of horses”) decrying the death penalty, and women’s rights. As a sailor and merchant, Lay settled briefly in Barbados, where he bore witness to a horror show of enslavement and

YOUR OCTOBER with

Rediker seems acutely aware of the impact Lay’s story could have in a time of political discord and social upheaval. The book was published in 2017, almost a year after the election of former United States President Donald Trump, whose influence has resulted in explicit con tinuing attacks against human rights and democracy. As a synopsis from the book’s publisher Beacon Press none-too-subtly suggests, we need someone like Lay, a “forceful and prescient visionary, who speaks to us across the ages and whose innovative approach to activism is a gift, transforming how we consider the past and how we might imagine the future.”

SPEND

Reluctant Immortals , the new spooky novel by Gwendolyn Kiste. The Pittsburgh-based, Bram Stoker Award-winning author tests the bounds of gothic horror fiction and history by placing the victimized heroines of Dracula and Jane Eyre in 1967 Haight-Ashbury, where they “band together to combat the toxic men bent on destroying their lives.” •

•

Follow a&e editor Amanda Waltz on Twitter @AWaltzCP

is, after all, a man dismissed for the extreme antics he used to shame Quakers into denouncing slavery ...

EIGHT LEGS, WARM HEART

BY MATTHEW MONROY INFO@PGHCITYPAPER.COM

AMY

BIANCO WANTS TO CHANGE the way you think about spiders. Those eight-legged fuzzballs, the ones with a constellation of tiny, orbed eyeballs? She loves them — and wants you to give them a second chance.

“They get blamed for shit they didn’t do! They’re not blood suckers,” Bianco tells Pittsburgh City Paper to her home. “They’re not gonna go see a human, crawl up on you in bed, and bite and feed on you.”

In Bianco’s creaky third-floor apart ment in the attic of a Swissvale Victorian triplex, she has five tarantulas, 20-plus recluse spiders, three wolf spiders, five jumping spiders, and a handful of other arachnids, as well as a collection of dead spiders preserved in clear, alcohol-filled vials. A self-professed “spiderologist,” Bianco wants to open people up to the possibility that the spindly creatures underneath their bed might not be as nightmarish as they imagine.

Bianco might be recognizable to Pittsburgh metal fans as the bassist of local band Lady Beast. She also works a 9-to-5 as a teacher at the Environmental Charter School in Regent Square. Off the job, she’s a spider educator, part nering with different nature organiza tions and children’s events to teach kids about spiders. She also runs a blog called SpiderMentor, where she documents her studies, including one about a goblin spider she found in her apartment.

On Sat., Oct. 15, you can find her at the Dari Delite Swissvale Closing Day Celebration with Schenley, a female rose hair tarantula. Other events are listed at SpiderMentor under the “Programs” tab.

Bianco is all about helping kids become more comfortable around spiders. At events, Bianco lets them hold Schenley if they want to. Most kids are apprehensive; some are terrified.

“I tell them, ‘Sit back, be quiet, be calm,’” Bianco says. “I have them sit in a circle, crisscross applesauce, because if we’re going to pass her around then

you’ve gotta be calm.”

Before Bianco places a tarantula on someone’s outstretched hands, she explains how it will feel. It’s normal to notice a prick where the spider stands, she says.

“On the end of their feet they have little claws — you’re going to feel that,” Bianco says. “They feel like little pinches.”

When I held Schenley, the pinches were gentler than I expected. At first, she maneuvered hesitantly around my palm,

but after a few minutes, she was making her way over my wrist and arm.

In addition to the events she works, Bianco volunteers at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, helping to organize vials of preserved spiders from as long ago as the 1960s that are unla beled or dried out. “I just love being in that environment,” Bianco says of the staff she works with at the museum. “I just listen to them talking and all the things they do because I didn’t go that

route in college.”

Bianco graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a degree in environmental studies, but that wasn’t the original plan. She had hoped to major in biology and become a park ranger, but organic chemistry and genetics weeded her out, she says. She keeps her diploma on the wall above her microscope. Next to it is a framed award from high school — a superlative for skipping the most days of school.

CP PHOTO: PAT CAVANAGH Amy Bianco, aka Spider Mentor

“I was not a fan of the people in high school. I was a high honor roll student before high school and then I was, like, ‘I’m going in the woods, fuck you guys.’ That’s why this,” she points to her Pitt diploma, “was a big deal.”

Spiders have been Bianco’s passion since she was a young girl growing up in the South Hills. Bianco remembers her first spider encounter clearly: she was four years old, playing in her basement, when she spotted a cobweb weaver spider underneath the hot water tank.

“I went over and put my finger in its web, and it moved and ran. And I ran. And then, it snuck back over. And I snuck back over,” Bianco says. “I kinda just got curious about them.”

Bianco began an avid collection as a kid, storing spiders in emptied pickle jars with grass. She has a scar in between her thumb and forefinger from where she missed trying to poke air holes in a lid with a knife.

“I would read about them. I would get books from the library about them,” Bianco says. “I would catch them all the time! Nobody was helping me with this.”

Her family was less apt to partake in her spider adventures. You couldn’t catch her mother within a mile of a spider, according to Bianco. “She would run out

of porta-potties with her pants down in public places because there was a spider in there,” Bianco says.

Slowly, Bianco got her mother to the point where she was able to hold taran tulas and even started placing spiders back in the grass instead of killing them. Her students are even helping out.

LYNNCULLENLIVE

“They all know about Miss Amy and the damn spiders,” Bianco says. “People bring their spiders into school to show me, and sometimes you’ll get three people running out of the bathroom — ‘Miss Amy, there’s a spider in the bath room’ — and I’ll run down the hall and tell them a little bit about it. The kids are becoming spider advocates now, too.”

Bianco describes her work as an effort to spread “fascination, not fear” about spiders. She hopes that the next time people see a spider in their house, they’ll think twice before smushing it with a slipper.

“They’re the underdogs. So many people just automatically step on them or scream,” Bianco says. “But did you take a closer look at it?”

CP PHOTO: PAT CAVANAGH Amy Bianco's tarantula

PARTY PICS

PHOTO

JARED WICKERHAM

PHOTO

JARED WICKERHAM

PHOTO BY JARED WICKERHAM

PHOTO BY JARED WICKERHAM

PHOTO BY JARED WICKERHAM

PHOTO

PHOTO

PHOTO BY LISA CUNNINGHAM

IRL / IN REAL LIFE EVENT

VIRTUAL / STREAMING OR ONLINE-ONLY EVENT

HYBRID / MIX OF IN REAL LIFE AND ONLINE EVENT

SEVEN DAYS IN PITTSBURGH

THU., OCT. 6

THU., OCT. 6

THEATER • IRL • DOWNTOWN

Fall has just begun, but the Benedum Center will have you thinking about the winter season with the live stage adaptation of Disney’s Frozen. The PNC Broadway in Pittsburgh production will have you and the whole family singing along to all the songs from the film’s award-winning soundtrack, and weave in some new ones for good measure. Join Elsa, Anna, Olaf, and all the rest of your favorite characters for a magical time. 1 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Continues through Sun., Oct. 16. 237 Seventh St., Downtown. $32-137. trustarts.org

FILM • IRL • OAKMONT

Things get witchy at The Oaks Theater when the venue pairs the film Practical Magic with beer. The screening and tasting event focuses on the 1998 film starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman as two small-town sisters trying to break the curse

that has plagued their magical family for generations. Sample some new brews as you enjoy this off-beat romantic cinematic treat. 6:30 p.m. 310 Allegheny River Blvd., Oakmont. $8. theoakstheater.com

FRI., OCT. 7

DANCE • IRL • DOWNTOWN

The Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre kicks off its 2022-2023 season with Storytelling In Motion at the August Wilson African American Cultural Center. The program is described as highlighting “innovative, thought-provoking and athletic performances,” including a piece inspired by the music of composer Claude Debussy and Helen Pickett’s “The Exiled,” which centers around three strangers destined to spend eternity together. Audiences can also expect the world premiere of a new work by PBT’s principal dancer Yoshiaki Nakano. 7:30 p.m. Continues through Sun., Oct. 9. 980 Liberty Ave., Downtown. $29-117. pbt.culturaldistrict.org

THEATER • IRL • EAST LIBERTY

Kelly Strayhorn Theater will expand the representation of Puerto Rican playwrights with a new work by its Freshworks resident artist Alyssa Velazquez. A release describes It is from her these seeds are sown as a “mango-infused story about second generation Latinx family building, personal desires, and mother daughter relationships.” Don’t miss your chance to see this “deeply personal exploration of gender, pregnancy, autonomy, and choice.” 8 p.m. Continues on Sat., Oct. 8. 5530 Penn Ave., East Liberty. Pay What Moves You $10-25. kelly-strayhorn.org

SAT., OCT. 8

TALK • IRL • MUNHALL

If you’re a fan of prestigious HBO drama series, you can’t fuggetabout In Conversation with The Sopranos at Carnegie of Homestead Music Hall. The event welcomes three cast members from the celebrated show, live and on stage. See Steve Schirripa, Vincent Pastore,

PHOTO: WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT INC. ^ Practical Magic

and Michael Imperioli (Bobby Bacala, Big Pussy, and Christopher, respectively) at this one-of-a-kind event. 8 p.m. 510 E. 10th Ave., Munhall. $34.75-79.72. librarymusichall.com

EVENT • IRL • AVELLA

Learn from the experts when the Meadowcroft Rockshelter and Historic Village welcomes curious crowds for Archaeology Day . Presented as part of Pennsylvania Archaeology Month, the event invites archaeologists from the Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology to present lectures and identify artifacts, all of which will be accompanied by demonstrations of prehistoric technology. Fans of body art will appreciate this year’s theme, “Tattooing and Other Forms of Body Alteration: Expressions of Self & Status,” which examines the tattooing practices of Native Americans and Europeans. 11 a.m.-4:30 p.m. 401 Meadowcroft Road, Avella. Included with regular admission. heinzhistorycenter.org

SUN., OCT. 9

MUSIC • IRL • ROBINSON

Music, shopping, and philanthropy collide during the Women Who Rock pop-up at the Mall at Robinson. Enjoy live acoustic music and self-care activities relating to women’s health care and beauty. Because October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the event will serve to raise awareness about the disease. Presented as part of the lead-up to the big Women Who Rock benefit concert taking place on Sat., Oct. 15 at Stage AE. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. 100 Robinson Centre Drive, Robinson. Free. shoprobinsonmall.com

MON., OCT. 10

LIT • IRL • ALLENTOWN

Bottlerocket Social Hall and White Whale Bookstore join forces to present a reading for authors Sadie Dupuis and Michael

TUE., OCT. 11

DeForge. Better known as the frontwoman of the band Speedy Ortiz, Dupuis will read from Cry Perfume, her new book of lyrical poetry. DeForge, a Canadian artist, will present Birds of Maine, his illustrative novel about a post-apocalyptic, post-human utopia populated by winged residents.

7-8 p.m. 1226 Arlington Ave., Allentown. $10. whitewhalebookstore.com/events

TUE., OCT. 11

OUTDOORS • IRL • OAKLAND

Find peace in Pittsburgh’s urban green spaces when Venture Outdoors presents the first of its Finding Calm Within – Nature Walk Series. Led by Sara Feley, described by Venture Outdoors as a “somatic, relationship oriented psychotherapist,” the two-mile-long hike strives to provide a space for positive self-reflection in the calming nature of Frick Park. Be sure to dress appropriately for this mild- to moderately-paced walk in the fall chill. The Finding Calm Within sessions will continue through Nov. 8. 7-8:30 a.m. 2005 Beechwood Blvd., Oakland. $10. Registration required. ventureoutdoors.org

WED., OCT. 12

THEATER • IRL • DOWNTOWN

A Tony Award-winning classic returns to the stage when Pittsburgh Public Theater presents its production of A Raisin in the Sun at the O’Reilly Theater. Directed by Timothy McCuen Piggee, the celebrated work captures the Black experience in America by following the Youngers, a tight-knit family in 1950s Chicago. The drama, written by Black playwright Lorraine Hansberry, originally debuted on Broadway in 1959 and has since been revisited in various forms, including a 1961 screen adaptation starring Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, and Louis Gossett, Jr. 8 p.m. Continues through Sun., Oct. 30. 621 Penn Ave., Downtown. $32-80. ppt.org

CP PHOTO: AMANDA WALTZ ^ Frick Park

Why you need dental insurance in retirement.

Many Americans are fortunate to have dental coverage for their entire working life, through employer-provided benefits. When those benefits end with retirement, paying dental bills out-of-pocket can come as a shock, leading people to put off or even go without care.

Simply put — without dental insurance, there may be an important gap in your healthcare coverage.

When you’re comparing plans ...

 Look for coverage that helps pay

 Look for coverage with no deductibles.

pocket

benefits

 Shop for coverage with no annual maximum

of

Medicare doesn’t pay for dental care.

That’s right. As good as Medicare is, it was never meant to cover everything. That means if you want protection, you need to purchase individual insurance.

Early detection can prevent small problems from becoming expensive ones.

The best way to prevent large dental bills is preventive care. The American Dental Association recommends checkups twice a year.

DENTAL

may

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may

plans

IT DOESN’T DO THAT

BY BRENDAN EMMETT QUIGLEY

Previous dental work can wear out.

Even if you’ve had quality dental work in the past, you shouldn’t take your dental health for granted. In fact, your odds of having a dental problem only go up as you age.2

Treatment is expensive — especially the services people over 50 often need.

Consider these national average costs of treatment ... $217 for a checkup ... $189 for a filling ... $1,219 for a crown.3 Unexpected bills like this can be a real burden, especially if you’re on a fixed income.

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STUDY

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WANTED

The University of Pittsburgh’s Alcohol & Smoking Research Lab is looking for people to participate in a research project. You must:

• Currently smoke cigarettes

• Be 18-49 years old, in good health, and speak fluent English

• Be right handed, willing to not smoke before two sessions, and to fill out ques tionnaires

Earn up to $260 for par ticipating in this study.

more information,

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