January 11, 2017 - Pittsburgh City Paper by Pittsburgh City Paper

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FREE GOOD FRIDAYS EVENTS 1.11 – 8pm FORCED ENTERTAINMENT: REAL MAGIC New Hazlett Theater (North Side) Co-presented with The New Hazlett Theater Tickets $15/$12 Members & students

1.14 – 2pm SIP AND SKETCH AT ACE HOTEL Ace Hotel – Gym (East Liberty) Co-presented with The Ace Hotel Pittsburgh in conjunction with the exhibition Andy Warhol: My Perfect Body. FREE

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

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

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

5pm - 10pm Presented by UPMC Health Plan

Each Friday in January from 5-10pm, enjoy free museum admission, a cash bar, and Pittsburgh’ss own DJ Huck Finn. 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 01.11/01.18.2017

Are you serious about 01.11/01.18.2017 VOLUME 27 + ISSUE 02

making MONEY? [EDITORIAL]

The largest flooring company on the east coast is undergoing significant growth and is looking for experienced CARPET & FLOORING Installers/Subcontractors. Grow with a company that cares about its subcontractors and start working as soon as TOMORROW!!

Editor CHARLIE DEITCH News Editor REBECCA ADDISON Arts & Entertainment Editor BILL O’DRISCOLL Associate Editor AL HOFF Web Producer ALEX GORDON Staff Writers RYAN DETO, CELINE ROBERTS Interns MEGAN FAIR, JOHN HAMILTON, AMANI NEWTON

• Sign on Bonus of $1,000.00 • Immediate Pay through weekly Direct Deposit • Steady Work 52 Weeks a year • Performance Incentive Program • Installation Support • Free trash Disposal

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

Interested and qualiﬁed candidates should respond at:

{COVER ILLUSTRATION BY JOSHUA GRAGG}

1.855.206.4512 workwithus@acsouth.com

[ADVERTISING]

[COVER STORY]

“Thank you for showing black children that they can aspire to hold the highest office in the land.” PAGE 06

[MUSIC]

Director of Advertising JESSIE AUMAN-BROCK Senior Account Executives PAUL KLATZKIN, JEREMY WITHERELL Advertising Representative BLAKE LEWIS Classified Manager ANDREA JAMES National Advertising Representative VMG ADVERTISING 1.888.278.9866 OR 1.212.475.2529

LANDMARKS PRESERVATION RESOURCE CENTER - A program of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation Foundation

Join us at the Landmarks Preservation Resource Center for ongoing workshops in January as we continue programming on architecture, history, design, urban planning, and other topics related to how cities function and historic preservation as a tool of community development.

[MARKETING+PROMOTIONS]

“I’m very seldom speechless, but this was such a glorious surprise.” PAGE 13

Marketing Director DEANNA KONESNI Marketing Design Coordinator LINDSEY THOMPSON Marketing Assistant THRIA DEVLIN

THURSDAY, JANUARY 19 • 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM

[ADMINISTRATION] Circulation Director JIM LAVRINC Office Administrator RODNEY REGAN Interactive Media Manager CARLO LEO

WORKSHOP: MODERN RETROFITS FOR VINTAGE HOUSES REGIS WILL: Carpenter & craftsman, Vesta Home Services

[PUBLISHER] EAGLE MEDIA CORP.

[ART]

“How much of what one might view as self-loathing or torment could as easily be interpreted as the results of a simple desire to shock?” PAGE 20

News 06 News of the Weird 12 Music 13 Arts 20 Events 23 Taste 26

About the presenter: Regis Will is a woodworker, craftsman, and owner of Vesta Home Services, a consulting ﬁrm on house restoration and Do-it-Yourself projects. He blogs about his work at The New Yinzer Workshop.

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Screen 30 Sports 32 Classifieds 34 Crossword 35 Free Will Astrology 36 Savage Love 37 NEWS

This workshop will focus on discussion of the various house restoration items on the market that can be used to update the convenience of an older house while preserving the character and style of the vintage house. We will touch on topics like air conditioning, plumbing ﬁxtures, doors and windows, and kitchens.

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THIS WORKSHOP IS FREE TO PHLF MEMBERS. NON-MEMBERS: $10. RSVPS ARE APPRECIATED: MARYLU@PHLF.ORG OR 412-471-5808 EXT. 527. FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT WWW.PHLF.ORG

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THIS WEEK

“THANK YOU FOR SERVING OUR COUNTRY WITH DIGNITY, WISDOM AND GRACE.”

ONLINE

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In Sunday’s playoff game, the Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Miami Dolphins. Check out our slideshow from the game at www.pghcitypaper.com.

In this week’s podcast, we’re bidding farewell to former music editor Margaret Welsh with an audio exit interview. Listen online at www.pghcitypaper.com or on iTunes.

In the latest CP Longform installment, we review the decade-old case of a convicted murderer maintaining his innocence. {CP ILLUSTRATION BY JOSHUA GRAGG}

Read it at www.pghcitypaper.com.

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As President Barack Obama’s tenure comes to a close, Pittsburghers and City Paper staffers thank him for his service Our featured #CPReaderArt photo from last week is a foggy view from Mount Washington by @c_bob412. Use #CPReaderArt to share your local photos with us for your chance to be featured next.

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n the night you were elected, I was working for one of the country’s oldest African-American newspapers, covering an election-night watch-party in the Hill District, one of Pittsburgh’s most historic black neighborhoods. As I think back on the tears I saw streaming down people’s faces after you were declared the winner, I can’t think of a better setting to have celebrated the election of our country’s first black president. So often, the service of our elected officials is marred by scandal and controversy, but during your eight years in office

you served as an exemplary role model for black children everywhere. Despite my disappointment in some of your policies, your legacy will be one of a supportive father and a loving husband. It’s hard to say what kind of world my future children will be born into, but I am thankful that they will have a president like you to look back on — a president with the same skin color as them. Thank you for showing black children that they can aspire to hold the highest ofﬁce in the land. RE B E C C A A D D I S ON CONTINUES ON PG. 08

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cheered out loud to my television set when your 2009 inaugural address included the line, “We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus and non-believers.” It was still widely taboo to announce you didn’t believe in God when I came out as an atheist in college in the 1990s. Every “God bless America” spoken by a politician and every “In God We Trust” printed on a dollar bill has been a reminder of all the times I was told I was going to Hell by a friend or family member. Not to mention all of the atheists who have been killed across the world, simply for not believing. I’m still not sure if our country will ever elect an atheist president in my lifetime, but I am thankful that you not only openly acknowledged us throughout your presidency, but just as recently as last month, gave us legal protection. As one of your final acts in office, on Dec. 16, you signed an update to the U.S. law protecting religious freedom: “The freedom of thought, conscience, and religion is understood to protect theistic and non-theistic beliefs as well as the right not to profess or practice any religion.” The Act also condemns “specific targeting of non-theists, humanists, and atheists because of their beliefs.” I’m hopeful that young Americans today will face less discrimination as they explore their religious beliefs — or lack of beliefs — and at least a small part of my world now seems a little safer. Hallelujah! LISA C UNNI NG HAM

hank you for serving our country with dignity, wisdom and grace. For caring so deeply and thinking so carefully about each word you said, each action you took. It wasn’t easy. Each day you fought against enormous opposition to bring health care to millions of people; to protect women’s reproductive rights; to promote marriage equality and racial justice; and champion policies to make equal pay and paid family leave for all workers a reality. Here in Pennsylvania, the Women and Girls Foundation is working with our state Department of Labor to create a state paid familyand medical-leave insurance fund because of the important leadership and funding your Department of Labor provided to states on this issue. Thank you to you and First Lady

Onlookers holding American flags on the National Mall observe the second Inauguration of Barack Obama as president in Washington D.C., on Jan. 21, 2013.

Michelle Obama for making the White House both accessible and regal at the same time. Together you represented what is best about America, what we each hope to be on our best day — kind and patient, beautiful and smart, spirited and witty, self-deprecating and majestic. I will never forget taking my son to meet you at the White House. Seeing him look up to meet your eyes, raising his hand to touch yours. No one in our family had ever been invited to the White House before you came along. But during your years in ofﬁce you opened the doors to women, people of color, immigrants, children and activists. You invited us to attend Fathers’ Day picnics and holiday parties, policy summits and Women’s History Month celebrations. It pains me to think of what comes after you leave. I worry that the people moving in will not be models for grace, inclusion, respect and wisdom. I worry that the doors to the White House will close once again; that the gates will once again keep “we the people” out, and billionaires safely in. I worry that instead of looking up at the president and at the White House with awe, that my son will look at it as a joke. As a place where a man lives who grabs women and demeans them, instead of lifting them up. Today I heard Michelle Obama give one of her last speeches as FLOTUS. She said, “Don’t be afraid. Be focused. Be determined. Be hopeful. Be empowered. Build a country worthy of your boundless promise. Lead by example with hope; never fear.” Thank you, Mr. President, for having the wisdom to fall in love with your boss at the law ﬁrm, for having the smarts and cool to woo

her, and for sharing her with the rest of us. As we look toward the coming days, months and years that feel so scary and uncertain, I plan to keep her words ringing in my ears encouraging me and all of us to be hopeful and unafraid as we ﬁnd some way back to the grace you honored us with during your time at the White House. H E AT H E R AR NE T, C E O WO ME N AND GIR L S F O U NDAT IO N

hank you for standing up for LGBT rights. Let’s start at the top: marriage equality. In June 2015, the U.S. Supreme court ruled 5-4 that marriage is a fundamental right guaranteed to all, including same-sex couples. You appointed two of the Supreme Court Justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, who ruled in favor of the decision (the tie-breaker was the Reagan-appointed Anthony Kennedy, btw). “If we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well,” you told us in remarks at the White House following the decision. “It is gratifying to see that principle enshrined into law by this decision.” Some of your biggest critics on the left may remember how you were antisame-sex marriage/pro-civil union in 2004 (even though you were pro-samesex marriage in 1996), but most of those criticisms have faded away because of an impressive LGBT-rights record as president. Another of your LGBT-rights accom-

plishments not to be forgotten is the repeal of the U.S. military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy that restricted gay, bisexual and lesbian people from openly serving in the armed services. The repeal actually has Pittsburgh-area roots, as former Western Pennsylvania Rep. Jason Altmire was the primary sponsor of the bill that passed the House and the Senate, and was signed by your own hand. You also signed the Matthew Shepard Act in 2009, which expanded the federal hate-crime law to include victims’ actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation or gender identity. In 2016, you stood up for transgender rights by instituting a policy that would allow transgender students in public schools across the country to use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity. (Federal courts later blocked the policy, but the issue could potentially make it all the way up to the Supreme Court for an ultimate decision.) You were also the only president to mention gay rights during your 2013 presidential inauguration: “Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law.” Thanks, Obama! RYA N D E TO

hey warn that presidents don’t necessarily impact citizen’s lives directly, but sometimes they do. Here’s a list of the things I remember fondly from your presidency. • The hope-ﬁlled 2009 Inauguration Day that warmed even this old cynic’s heart. I’ll never forget being in that huge CONTINUES ON PG. 10

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 01.11/01.18.2017

The

2017

SPIRIT KING of

Award Ceremony

This annual award honors lifetime achievement in the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Port Authority is proud to present Cmdr. Gwen Elliott and Walt Harper as the 2017 Spirit of King honorees. The ceremony takes place Thursday, January 19th 10:00 am at The Kingsley Center, 6435 Frankstown Avenue.

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THANKS, OBAMA, CONTINUED FROM PG. 08

crowd in D.C. and hearing the “sound” of more than a million people being silent while you took the oath. • The 2009 stimulus package that included a tax credit for replacing my old heater with a more energy-efﬁcient one. • Also, in 2009, signing the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act, which prohibited a bunch of awful stuff credit-card companies used to do to customers. Also: Made gift cards last longer! • In 2011, tossing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and making it OK for gays to serve openly in the military. I’m old enough to have had gay friends kicked out in the 1980s. • The millions and millions of acres of land (and water) assigned National Monument status, some of which I have enjoyed visiting. Yo, southeast Utah! • Keeping it 100 at the White House Press Correspondents dinners and never being afraid to laugh at yourself. Bonus skill: having crack comic timing. I laughed and laughed at your jokes … until I remembered you were leaving. AL HO FF

iven that your immediate predecessor in the White House effectively denied the existence of human-caused climate change, you could hardly have done worse on the issue. But given the constraints imposed by Congressional Republicans wrapped in their own increasingly virulent form of denialism, you actually did pretty well in addressing this, the most important challenge facing human civilization. After decades of dithering, for instance, the U.S. ﬁnally signed on to an international climate accord, the so-called

reductions that scientists say are needed as we wean ourselves off fossil fuels entirely. But while your successor has vowed to reverse course on these initiatives, he would do so at the peril of the planet. B I L L O’ D RI S C OL L

{OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE PHOTO BY PETE SOUZA}

President Barack Obama lifts the Stanley Cup trophy during the East Room ceremony for the 2009 Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penquins, Sept. 10, 2009.

Paris Treaty. It’s not really a treaty, but it’s a start on us formally acknowledging that climate is a global problem, and that the rich countries who’ve mostly caused it must bear the brunt in both solving it and mitigating its effects for the poor countries suffering from rising oceans and extreme weather that they had little role in creating. Your administration also successfully pushed for rules doubling automobile fuel-efﬁciency standards, a practical way to pare the carbon emissions that are the main cause of climate change. Mostly, though, thanks for the Clean Power Plan, a U.S. EPA mandate that each state create its own scheme for reducing carbon emissions from energy generation, by roughly 30 percent by 2030. This was the single biggest action on climate change ever taken by the federal government, and if its requirements are met, it

THANK YOU FOR BEING A POSITIVE ROLE MODEL.”

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will put us within shouting distance of the kind of emissions reductions we ultimately need to avoid the worst effects of climate change. Just as signiﬁcantly, it will show other countries that the world’s biggest energy hogs (that’s us) are capable of reform. It should also spur much-needed further development of renewable energy sources like wind and solar. And it should mean cleaner air. Moreover, you canceled the climate-killing Keystone XL oil pipeline, and blocked offshore drilling in the Arctic Ocean. Climate advocates have criticized you, rightly, for your overall support for oil and gas drilling (even as, in continued deﬁance of reality, fossil-fuel interests and their representatives in Congress continued to attack you for doing the opposite). And for sure, even the Clean Power Plan is only a downpayment on much larger

pittsburgh.colormemine.com

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our tenure as our nation’s 44th President will be marked by your tireless commitment to ensure that no one goes without the basic care they need to live healthy, productive lives. That’s especially true for women. In December, your administration ﬁnalized a new rule that will protect birth control, cancer screenings and other basic health care for more than 4 million people, including more than 210,000 Pennsylvanians — the third largest share of patients nationally under Title X, the nation’s family-planning program. The administration’s rule ensures patients can access care at qualiﬁed healthcare providers, including Planned Parenthood and other reproductive-health-care providers, and makes it clear that it is against the law for states to block people from accessing care at a health center because the organization also provides safe, legal abortion. And, as politicians launched attacks against Planned Parenthood and threatened to cut off funding that allows our clinics to provide access to lifesaving preventative care such as cancer screenings, birth control, STI testing and treatment, and well-woman exams, you were among the leaders pushing back. Thanks to your administration, people in Pennsylvania and across the country continue to get the care they need to stay healthy. Pennsylvania’s

Planned Parenthood afﬁliates provide quality care to 90,000 women, men and young people every year. No one should have their basic health care taken away. Yet, we know many of these provisions face attacks in the new Congress or by a U.S. Health and Human Services secretary who is determined to undo commonsense protections. Every person deserves access to quality, affordable health care from a provider they know and trust, which is why we will ﬁght on as we always have. And we will be eternally grateful to our president. Over the last eight years, there has been no greater champion for women’s health than Barack Obama. Thank you, Mr. President. LOVE, PL AN N E D PA R E NTHOOD OF W ESTERN PA

hank you for being a positive role model to children discovering the ofﬁce of president for the ﬁrst time. I have an

RREESSEEAARRCCHH SSTTUUDDYY

8-year-old nephew and you are the only president he has known. He has been able to witness a president who is calm during crisis and unflinching when important decisions had to be made. Pardon my French, Mr. President, but I’m not sure what kind of shit-show he is going to have to see for the next four years. But I am confident that because he and children his age had you as their first president, they will not accept future leaders like the buffoon we are about to experience. I, too, am thankful for your leadership even though I’m too jaded, cynical and broken to ever think this country will find its way. My presidents were Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George [big] Bush, Bill Clinton and George [little] Bush. I never had a goddamned shot at ever being positive about our government and I’m sad about that. Although, in you, I saw at least for awhile the hope and change you promised, and I’m glad that for many young Americans your message was their first presidential experience. It’s an experience that will guide them when it’s their turn to choose this nation’s leaders. Thanks, Obama.

Borderline Pe r s o n a l i t y D i s o r d e r The University of Pittsburgh and UPMC are seeking men and women ages 18 to 45 to take part in a research study of borderline personality disorder. To participate, you must have symptoms of the disorder, which may include: troubled personal relationships, chronic feelings of emptiness or boredom, difﬁculty controlling anger or frustration, mood swings, self-destructive or impulsive behaviors, or history of self-inﬂicted pain or injury. Participants are interviewed about their moods, behaviors, and personality traits and will be compensated up to $125 upon completion of the interviews. Some participants may also undergo an fMRI scan. There is no cost for this procedure. Participants are compensated $50 upon completion of the fMRI. For more information, call 412-246-5367.

C H AR L IE DE IT C H

JENSORENSEN

Warmest winter rates yet, plus nearnightly events, like Monday night Dodgeball, local DJ sets and an ongoing art series with The Andy Warhol Museum.

ACE HOTEL PITTSBURGH — “A Place You Can Go” 120 S Whitfield @acehotelpittsburgh acehotel.com/pittsburgh

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News of the Weird

S E N D YO UR WE I R D N E WS TO W E I RD N E W S @ E ART HL I NK . N E T O R WWW. NE WS O F T HE WE I R D. C OM

{BY CHUCK SHEPHERD}

Typhoon Lighting is closing its doors in Regent Square and needs to

clear out inventory! Unbelievable discounts on the whole store.

Claim your Lighting Treasure!

Russian producers are planning the so-farultimate survivors’ show — in the Siberian wilderness for nine months (temperatures as low as minus-40 degrees Fahrenheit), with 30 contestants selected after signing liability waivers that protect the show even if someone is raped or murdered. (Police may come arrest the perpetrators, but the producers are not responsible for intervening.) The show (Game2: Winter) will be telecast live, around the clock, beginning July 2017, via 2,000 cameras placed in a large area full of bears and treacherous forest. Producers told Siberian Times in December that 60 prospects had already signed up for the last-personstanding prize: the equivalent of $1.6 million (only requirements: be 18 and “sane”). (Bonus: The production company’s advertising lists the “dangerous” behaviors it allows, including “fighting,” “murder,” “rape,” “smoking.”)

1130 S. Braddock Avenue Regent Square, PA 15218 Phone: 412.242.7050 Tuesday-Saturday 11-6

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With car-camel collisions increasing in Iran’s two southern provinces, an Iranian government ministry is in the process of issuing identification cards to each camel, supposedly leading to outerwear license “plates” on each of the animals. Authorities told the Islamic Republic News Agency the registration numbers are needed if an accident victim needs to report the camel or to help trace smugglers. (No actual U.S.style license plates on camels have yet made the world’s news photographs.)

Martin Shkreli became the Wall Street bad boy in 2015 when his company Turing Pharmaceuticals bought the right to market the lifesaving drug Daraprim and promptly raised its typical price of $18 a pill to $750. But in November, high schoolers in the chemistry lab at Sydney Grammar in Australia created a molecular knockoff of Daraprim for about $2 a tablet. Their sample of “pyrimethamine” (Daraprim’s chemical name) was judged authentic by a University of Sydney chemistry professor. Daraprim, among other uses, fights deadly attacks on immune systems, such as for HIV patients.

Oops! Organizers of the Christmas Day caroling program at the Nelum Pokuna theater in Colombo, Sri Lanka, drawing thousands of devout celebrants, were apparently confused by one song title and innocently included it in the book for the carolers. (No, it wasn’t “Inna Gadda Da Vida” from a famous Simpsons episode.) It was “Hail Mary” by the late rapper Tupac Shakur — likely resulting in the very first appearance of certain words in any Christmasservice publication anywhere.

Officials of the Ulm Minster in Ulm, Germany, the world’s tallest church (530 feet high), said in October that they fear it might eventually be brought down — by visitors who make the long trek up with a full bladder and no place to relieve themselves except in dark alcoves, thus eroding the structure’s sandstone. A building-preservation representative also cited vomit in the alcoves, perhaps as a result of the dizzying height of the view from the top. (News of the Weird has reported on erosion damage to a bridge, from spitting, in Mumbai, India,

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 01.11/01.18.2017

and at the Taj Mahal, from bug droppings.)

The Dubai-based Gulf News reported in November that 900 Kuwaiti government workers had their pay frozen during the current investigation into no-shows, including one man on the payroll (unidentified) who reportedly had not actually worked in 10 years. Another, who had been living abroad for 18 months while drawing his Kuwaiti pay, was reduced to halfpay, but insisted he had asked several times for assignments but was told nothing was available. (Gulf News reported that the 10-year man is appealing the freeze!)

World-class chess players are famous for intense powers of concentration, but a chess journal reported in October that top-flight female players have actually been disqualified from matches for showing too much cleavage as they play, thus distracting their opponent (according to Ms. Sava Stoisavljevic, head of the European Chess Union). In fact, the Women’s World Chess Championship, scheduled for

February, has decreed that, since the matches will be held in Tehran, all contestants must wear hijabs (leading a U.S. women’s champion to announce she is boycotting).

News You Can Use: German Horst Wenzel, “Mr. Flirt,” fancies himself a smoothtalking maestro, teaching mostly wealthy but tongue-tied German men lessons (at about $1,500 a day!) in how to approach women — but this year has decided to “give back” to the community by offering his expertise pro-bono to lonely Syrian and Iraqi refugees who have flooded the country. At one class in Dortmund in November, observed by an Associated Press reporter, most “students” were hesitant, apparently divided between the embarrassed (when Wenzel informed them it’s “normal” to have sex on the first or second date) and the awkwardly confident (opening line: “I love you. Can I sleep over at your place?”). But, advised Wenzel, “Don’t tell [a German woman] that you love [her] at least for the first three months [because] German women don’t like clinginess.”

WAYNOVISION

LOCAL

“IT’S SO BEAUTIFUL WHAT MY FRIENDS GOT TOGETHER TO DO FOR ME.”

BEAT

{BY MEG FAIR}

BREAKING CODE

INFO@PGHCITYPAPER.COM

CODE ORANGE ALBUM-RELEASE SHOW 7 p.m. Fri., Jan. 13. Rex Theater, 1602 E. Carson St., South Side. All ages. $11.25-15. 412-381-6811 or www.rextheater.com NEWS

The cover art created by Anne Feeney’s husband, Julie Leonardsson

Code Orange {PHOTO COURTESY OF KIMI HANAUER}

In 2008, Code Orange was a scrappy local punk band composed of teens hungry to create music and turn heads. Now the band is signed to a major label, Roadrunner Records, and about to release Forever, one of the most anticipated metalcore albums in recent history. Drummer and vocalist Jami Morgan says CO’s recent success and accolades are due to the amount of hustling the band has done over the past nine years. “I was 14 when we booked our first show,” Morgan says. “We used to go on tours we booked ourselves during winter breaks in high school.” Since then, the band has embarked on 20 full U.S. tours and released six splits and EPs in addition to two studio albums. I Am King, released in 2014, was met with critical acclaim and a surge in followers in mainstream hardcore circles. “When you’re not the cool kids in hardcore, and we aren’t, you have to go out and get it. Nothing has been handed to us,” says Morgan. That work ethic underlying each step the band took intensified while writing Forever. “With the drive that we feel, there’s a lot of frustration [during the writing process]. Me and Joe [Goldman] have gotten into fist fights during the process, but it’s all love. We just want to be great so fucking bad,” says Morgan. “We’ve known each other for so long, we’re like a family. So we fight like family.” That the band members all reside locally is key to their still-developing sound. “There are so many scenes in Pittsburgh. It’s totally different from what’s going on in DIY scenes across the country,” Morgan says. “Purely out of ignorance from living here, we just thought we could combine all those genres, that it was normal. It wasn’t until we were touring that we realized it was something different that caught people’s attention.” It’s the presence of genre-bending nightmarish soundscapes and chilling electronics that make the three singles from Forever stand out from traditional metalcore. “I’m an aggressive person, and for this record I wanted to find new colors to paint that with,” Morgan says. “The electronics and noise are different tools to do that.”

MONUMENTAL RECORD {BY CHARLIE DEITCH}

Anne Feeney and her daughter Amy Sue Berlin

F YOUR CHILDREN, spouse, best friends,

one that Feeney both deserves a tribute, and has the musical catalog to support a 16-track record. Since 1991, she has been performing her music at social-justice rallies and protests, and has shared the stage with musicians like Pete Seeger and Loretta Lynn. Peter, Paul and Mary once recorded her song, “Have You Been to Jail for Justice?” and Peter Yarrow, of PPM, records the song on this record.

mentors and colleagues conspire to deceive you about something big, it’s usually not a good thing. But in the case of the new Anne Feeney tribute record, the secret was well worth waiting for. “I’m very seldom speechless, but this was such a glorious surprise,” Feeney says of War on the Workers: A Tribute to Anne Feeney, which she received a copy of shortly before Christmas. “But then I started to wonder how they managed to pull it off. A lot of the artists on the tribute are friends that I’ve known for years and toured with, and most I’ve seen in the past year and they didn’t say a word.” Even more amazing is that the vibrant cover art — featuring a bare-breasted Feeney, with an American ﬂag in one hand and a guitar in the other, charging into battle against this country’s corporate and political oppressors — was created by her husband, Swedish artist Julie Leonardsson. “I never saw him working on it,” she says with a laugh. “It was all so special.” It shouldn’t come as a surprise to any-

WAR ON THE WORKERS: A TRIBUTE TO ANNE FEENEY is available at annefeeney.bandcamp.com/ releases. A free CD-release party will be held Feb. 2 at the Wallace Tap Room in the Hotel Indigo, 123 N. Highland Ave., East Liberty.

In Feeney’s case, the answer to that question is yes. Twenty years before she started touring the world to ﬁght for social justice, she was involved in activism. She was ﬁrst arrested in 1972, at the Republi-

can National Convention in Miami. Born in Charleroi and still based in Pittsburgh, she spent years pushing for a rape-crisis center in the city. That fight led to the creation of, Pittsburgh Action Against Rape, which is still operational today. Feeney has never been one to shy away from a fight, which is sort of how the record came about. The album was the spur-of-themoment brainchild of Feeney’s daughter, Amy Sue Berlin, a singer/songwriter living in Austin. She says the idea for a tribute record came from a place of love and concern for her mother, who was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2010. Since her diagnosis, Feeney had been involved in all-out battle against the disease. That fight, Berlin says, has definitely taken its toll on her mother physically, emotionally and financially. Feeney, Berlin says, was “one of the most articulate people I’ve ever known.” However, “full cranial radiation” drastically affected Feeney’s short-term memory, and Berlin says that makes it especially hard for an artist who does all of her own writing and booking. CONTINUES ON PG. 14

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MONUMENTAL RECORD, CONTINUED FROM PG. 13

“Unfortunately, it’s affected her ability to tour, and it has changed her stage performance. But I think she’s come to terms with where she is, and she’s moving forward,” Berlin says. “Also, as a folk singer, a musician, she doesn’t have a pension plan. I wanted to do something that would lift her spirits, help her ﬁnancially while also continuing her legacy and spreading her message. “So [early in 2016], I wrote a little note asking if people would be interested in collaborating on an album, gathered up a song list and sent it out to her friends, mentors, acts she’s toured with and people in the movement. I heard back immediately from people who wanted to be a part of this, and things went into full motion very quickly.” Berlin initially thought the project would take three months; it took more than nine to complete. Her brother, Dan Berlin, also worked on the project and provided the ever-important ﬁnancial support. Aside from Yarrow, the record offers covers by artists like Berlin, Dan Bern, John Elliott, and Evan Greer, performing with Pittsburgh’s own Anti-Flag. The digital album is available now for $16 on Bandcamp (www. annefeeney.bandcamp.com/ releases). The CD, which ships in February and includes the art work and liner notes as well as a downloadable version of the record, is $20. Feeney will hold a CD-release party at the Wallace Tap Room, in East Liberty’s Hotel Indigo, on Feb. 2. Berlin says she is thrilled with the reception her mother gave the CD and hopes that at the end of the day, it will fully serve its double purpose as a fundraiser and a well-deserved tribute. So far, the project has raised a few thousand dollars on preorders; she hopes that once word spreads, the CD’s demand will continue to increase. “It’s so hard to be a musician when your health is declining,” Berlin says. “My mother has used her music to educate and unite people. Very few of us can say that we’ve had that kind of impact on the world. What she does is incredibly important and a dying art. I really want this to get to as many ears as possible.” For her part, Feeney is humbled by the work of all the artists and especially her daughter. “It says so much about a daughter’s love. It takes so much talent to put something like this together,” says Feeney. “She also had the wherewithal to contact these people, ask them to pick a song, pay for recording it themselves and send it back. They also donated the master recordings to me. I get overwhelmed thinking about it to the point I want to cry, because it’s so beautiful what my friends got together to do for me.” C D E I T C H @ P G H C I T Y PA P E R. C OM

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 01.11/01.18.2017

NEW RELEASES

RAINBOW KITTEN A RAINBOW KITTEN FAMILY CHRISTMAS SELF-RELEASED RAINBOWKITTEN.BANDCAMP.COM

Christmas music finally has the bizarro makeover it needed. A Rainbow Kitten Family Christmas takes a stab at holiday classics like “The First Noel” and “Away in a Manger,” and transforms them into cute, synth-y oddities, without losing the original melody. Released on Rainbow Kitten’s Bandcamp on Dec. 30 (five days late, or maybe 360 early), Family Christmas has the quirky appeal of old electro-acoustic Beatles covers by Marty Gold. Re-packaging familiar melodies with unconventional instrumentation is a formula as old as time (or maybe just the 1970s), but the album succeeds because each song is covered in a distinct way. There’s nothing one-size-fits-all about the approach here, and the result is a Christmas album that actually breathes life, albeit weird life, into songs that desperately need it.

JARROD LAWSON

BY ALEX GORDON

KYLE SIMPSON JAZZ COLLECTIVE SOMETHING IN BETWEEN SELF-RELEASED

A composer working with large ensembles faces several daunting tasks: constructing pieces that utilize all parts of the group; arranging them in a way that brings out these qualities; and finding players who will bring the ideas to life. Trumpeter Kyle Simpson, a professor of music at Washington & Jefferson College, has managed to fire on all cylinders on Something in Between. The 10 tracks, nine of them penned by Simpson, are split between a seven-piece chamber group and a 16-piece big band. Both settings reveal a rich harmonic sense that recalls Gil Evans’ adventurous work. In “Allegheny Commons Stroll,” bass clarinet melodies interact with upper brass and reeds, with strong solos from saxophonists John Petrucelli and Jacob Teichroew. The album includes some established locals — Reggie Watkins (trombone), Paul Thompson (bass) and George Heid III (drums) — but all the players deserve attention, especially Simpson himself.

SOUL ARTIST OF THE YEAR -JAZZFM, LONDON

JANUARY 20• AUGUST WILSON CENTER TRUSTARTS.ORG • BOX OFFICE AT THEATER SQUARE 412-456-6666 • GROUPS 10+ TICKETS 412-471-6930

BY MIK E SHANLEY

Simpson hosts a CD-release party with a smaller group at 7 p.m. Sat., Jan. 14. City Books, 908 Galveston Ave., North Side. 412-321-7323 NEWS

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{PHOTO COURTESY OF SWEET NOTE ENTERTAINMENT}

Soulful: Lyndsey Smith

SOULFUL DELIVERY {BY BILLY LUDT} SOUL MUSIC has been a means of empowerment for its artists and listeners since its inception six decades ago. That empowerment often comes through sharing the pain and adversity of life through performance. That’s definitely how it works for Pittsburgh’s Lyndsey Smith & Soul Distribution, whose music implores listeners to stay motivated, stay strong and “Keep On Movin’.” “Everything we write comes from a place of finding inner strength and sometimes letting yourself go, so that you can come to a place of happiness or peace,” says Smith, the band’s lead vocalist. “Sometimes you have to lose control a little bit in order to find that order and find that place of peace.”

Smith attributes her strength as a person and as a singer to being a survivor of both domestic violence and a brain tumor. “Both of those elements, I had fought them for a while, and now I use them kind of as my motivation to push through,” she says. “It’s also the grit and the gravel behind my voice. It comes from a place of understanding and identifying with that pain. “Whenever you hear a really, really hard line, that’s usually the mental space I use to inspire bringing it home.” Now in her 10th year performing, Smith is raising four sons, working as a performing-arts teacher and vocal coach, and still ﬁnds time to get up on stage and belt out a set with Soul Distribution. Expect a dynamic lineup of tracks on Rhapsodize Me, with tones ranging from sensual to inspiring. As Smith puts it, it is an album that is “truly soul.” “I was literally raised on soul music,” she says. “I was just constantly singing, period. I used to walk through the house, and everyone would tell me I didn’t go anywhere without singing. They used to have to tell me to shut up. All the time. All I used to do is sing.” After ﬁve years of performing with Soul Distribution, Smith says she intends to take the band national. “I think the best feeling is knowing when you go to another city, there’s nobody that really knows you,” Smith says. “They haven’t seen you before. They don’t know what you do. When you’re able to change their minds, or even just stun them and shock them to the point that they start following you and telling other people about you, it is the absolute best feeling ever.”

“SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO LOSE CONTROL A LITTLE BIT TO FIND THAT PLACE OF PEACE.”

LYNDSEY SMITH & SOUL DISTRIBUTION EP-RELEASE PARTY 8 p.m. Sat., Jan. 14. James Street Gastropub, 422 Foreland St., North Side. $5. 412-904-3335 or www.jamesstreetgastropub.com.

The single “Keep on Movin’,” off the upcoming EP Rhapsodize Me, opens with a driving drum beat and horn section playing sharply concise notes in quick succession; Smith’s carrying vocals kick in a few measures into the joint. The song plays on its title, often stopping for an instant and bringing it all back to full strength a note later.

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

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 01.11/01.18.2017

{PHOTO COURTESY OF OLIVIA LOCHER}

CRITICS’ PICKS

Xeno & Oaklander

[DRUM AND BASS] + FRI., JAN. 13 In the darkest, chilliest part of the year, nothing beats dancing the darkness away with some well-composed electronic music. Local D&B talent reps at Cattivo with the gritty energy of TKinz, party-ready SemKo, the dreamysounding Status Jackers and the sinisterly clever sounds of Emplate. Headlining the evening is Total Science, a D&B bad-ass from the U.K. Bring a hand towel and Status Jackers hydrate well, because if everyone’s doing it right, this will be a very sweaty dance party. Meg Fair 7:30 p.m. 146 44th St., Lawrenceville. $12. 412-687-2157 or www.cattivopgh.com

[RAP] + FRI., JAN. 13 Killer Mike and El-P are Run the Jewels, one of the most important duos in the current hip-hop universe. Run the Jewels 3, which dropped at the end of 2016, is a perfect culmination of El-P’s brilliant production and Killer Mike’s genius wordsmithery, a bold “fuck you” to white supremacy and injustice. Highlights include “Legend Has It” and “Panther Like a Panther.” Catch the magic at Stage AE with experimental, psych-meets-electronic producer The Gaslamp Killer, NYC-based crunk producer Nick Hook, oddball experimental psych-rock duo Cuz and filter-free rap royalty Gangsta Boo. MF 8 p.m. 400 North Shore Drive, North Side. $30. 412-229-5483 or www.stageae.com

[INDIE POP] + SAT., JAN. 14 It can be really frustrating when atrocities are happening on the other side of the planet and you feel powerless to help. Fit some giving into your regular show-going routine by hitting the Mr. Roboto Project for a benefit for Syria via a fundraising effort for the International

NEWS

Rescue Committee. There will be short sets from a whole host of locals bringing music, art and zines, including Jack Swing, Swampwalk, the Childlike Empress, Emma Vescio, nightshade, Rue, the Otis Wolves, Reid and lazyblackman. Out-of-town support is provided by visiting New Jersey artists coolshark and Secret Mountain. MF 7 p.m. 5106 Penn Ave., Bloomfield. $5+. All ages. www.roboto project.org

[ROCK] + SUN., JAN. 15 Teenage Halloween is one of those powerpop bands that feels like a pleasant escape; the saccharine but moody melodies and brief songs are designed for prime bedroom jamming. The New Jersey outfit is currently on tour with TWIABP’s David F. Bello, who will also be performing at the Mr. Roboto Project. Local jams provided by folky punk band Endless Mike and the Beagle Club, as well as the bedroom-pop experts of Soda Club. MF 7 p.m. 5106 Penn Ave., Bloomfield. $10. All ages. www.robotoproject.org

[EXPERIMENTAL] + WED., JAN. 18 I will admit that I’m a sucker for ’80s-influenced pop, but I can objectively say that Brooklyn, N.Y.’s Xeno & Oaklander is making some primo sounds in that style. Moving back and forth from moodier synths (“Marble”) to bright, dancy bliss (“Sheen”), the duo has a knack for movement and energy in the realm of minimalist electronic music. Really taking the sound home are Liz Wendelbo’s airy vocals, which provide a tender touch to some of the harder tracks. Hear for yourself at Brillobox alongside CHOIR and Cloning. MF 9 p.m. 4104 Penn Ave., Bloomfield. $8. 412-621-4900 or brillobox.net

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

ROCK/POP

DJS

THU 12

CLUB CAFE. The Toasters w/ iNCO fIDO, No Person. South Side. 412-431-4950.

BELVEDERE’S. Gold Soundz. 90s alt dance party. Lawrenceville. 412-687-2555. MR. SMALLS THEATER. Centrifuge Thursdays. At the Funhouse. Millvale. 412-821-4447. PERLE CHAMPAGNE BAR. Bobby D Bachata. Downtown. 412-471-2058.

CLUB CAFE. The Hulton Road Band Paris Monster w/ Cape Cod. South Side. 412-431-4950. HOWLERS. Cal Folger Day, Ben Shepherd, Dan Koshute, Reid Magette. Bloomfield. 412-682-0320. MR. SMALLS THEATER. Smile My Dear, Steel City Ruins, Look Out Loretta, Dan Swank, Life Is Short. Millvale. 412-821-4447.

SAT 14 BAJA BAR AND GRILL. In Transit Band. Fox Chapel. 412-963-0640. BALTIMORE HOUSE. After The Fall w/ A Common Crown. Pleasant Hills. 412-653-9332. CLUB CAFE. The Suitcase Junket w/ Grandadchilds. South Side. 412-431-4950. DOWNEY’S HOUSE. Good Guys. Robinson. 412-489-5631. LOUGHLIN’S PUB. Hellin Back Band. Cheswick. 724-265-9950. MOONDOG’S. TheCAUSE. Blawnox. 412-828-2040. THE R BAR. Chrome Moses w/ Taylor Carano. Dormont. 412-942-0882. RIVERS CASINO. Artistree. North Side. 412-231-7777.

SUN 15 THE R BAR. Billy The Kid & the Regulators. Dormont. 412-942-0882.

FRI 13 ANDYS WINE BAR. DJ Malls Spins Vinyl. Downtown. 412-773-8884. BAJA BAR AND GRILL. Pittsburgh All-Stars DJs. Fox Chapel. 412-963-0640. BELVEDERE’S. Get Weird Twerk-Off Dance Party. Lawrenceville. 412-687-2555. THE FLATS ON CARSON. Pete Butta. South Side. 412-586-7644.

SAT 14 BELVEDERE’S. California Love w/ ADMC. West Coast Dance Party. Lawrenceville. 412-687-2555. DIESEL. DJ CK. South Side. 412-431-8800.

MP 3 MONDAY VIOLET ROSE {PHOTO COURTESY OF GREGORY NEISER}

FRI 13

JAMES STREET GASTROPUB & SPEAKEASY. PLAY ft. Steve Knots, William Parham & Chris Owl. North Side. 412-904-3335. ONE 10 LOUNGE. DJ Goodnight, DJ Rojo. Downtown. 412-874-4582. THE R BAR. KAR-E-O-KEE. Dormont. 412-942-0882. REGINA ELENA CLUB. DJ Ron Hopkinson. Sharpsburg. 412-781-0229. RIVERS CASINO. DJ NIN. North Side. 412-231-7777. ROWDY BUCK. Top 40 Dance. South Side. 412-431-2825. RUGGER’S PUB. 80s Night w/ DJ Connor. South Side. 412-381-1330.

TUE 17 THE GOLDMARK. Pete Butta. Reggae & dancehall. Lawrenceville. 412-688-8820.

WED 18 SMILING MOOSE. Rock Star Karaoke w/ T-MONEY. South Side. 412-431-4668. SPOON. Spoon Fed. East Liberty. 412-362-6001.

w paper pghcitym .co

HIP HOP/R&B FRI 13 STAGE AE. Run The Jewels w/ The Gaslamp Killer, Spark Master Tape, Cuz. North Side. 412-229-5483.

SAT 14 JAMES STREET GASTROPUB & SPEAKEASY. Lindsey Smith & Soul Distribution, The Bill Henry Band & Byron Nash + Plan B. EP release. North Side. 412-904-3335. XTAZA NIGHTCLUB. DJ Bamboo & Davy Wreck. Strip District. 412-726-0061.

SAT 14 JAMES STREET GASTROPUB & SPEAKEASY. Sweaty Betty Blues Band. North Side. 412-904-3335.

JAZZ THU 12 Each week we bring you a new song from a local band or musician. This week’s track comes from Violet Rose (though currently local, she’s leaving the ’Burgh for L.A. in 2017). Stream or download her sleek and catchy new single “Repeat” for free at FFW>>, the music blog at www.pghcitypaper.com.

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 01.11/01.18.2017

a white police officer & spirits that watch over the world, while exploring themes of justice & inequity in society today. A panel will join the workshop to discuss important topics relevant to today’s society, such as How do we heal? How do we protect our children? How do we survive this state? What comes next? East Liberty. 412-621-1499. VALLOZZI’S PITTSBURGH. Eric Johnson. Downtown. 412-394-3400.

FRI 13 FULL T LIS E ANDORA RESTAURANT ONLwIN FOX CHAPEL. w.

MIKE’S NEW MOON SALOON. Jack of Diamonds. Gibsonia. 724-265-8188. MOONDOG’S. Something’s Comin’ w/ Miss Freddye’s Blues Band. Blawnox. 412-828-2040.

TUE 17

MR. SMALLS THEATER. Deerhunter. Millvale. 412-821-4447.

THE FLATS ON CARSON. Pete Butta. South Side. 412-586-7644.

FRI 13

BLOOMFIELD BRIDGE TAVERN. Knauer Brothers, Qliterati & Midnight Ensemble. MLK Day Memorial Show. All proceeds to benefit Duncan & Porter Shelters for the Homeless. Bloomfield. 412-682-8611. CLUB CAFE. Man About A Horse w/ Juvenile Characteristics, Daryl Shawn. South Side. 412-431-4950.

WED 18

SUN 15

BLUES

MON 16

CLUB CAFE. Bonnie Whitmore w/ Kayla Schureman Escape Pod, Drunken Sunday. South Side. 412-431-4950. STAGE AE. Circa Survive w/ mewithoutYou, Turnover. North Side. 412-229-5483.

REMEDY. Feeling Without Touching. Lawrenceville. 412-781-6771. ROWDY BUCK. Top 40 Dance. South Side. 412-431-2825.

JAMES STREET GASTROPUB & SPEAKEASY. Roger Humphries Jam Session. Ballroom. North Side. 412-904-3335. KELLY-STRAYHORN THEATER. New Jazz Opera Workshop: “A Gathering of Sons”. A series of workshops featuring a newly-composed jazz opera, A Gathering of Sons! The opera tells the story of a young black boy, his parents,

Pianist Harry Cardillo & vocalist Charlie Sanders. Fox Chapel. 412-967-1900. GRILLE ON SEVENTH. Tony Campbell & Howie Alexander. Downtown. 412-391-1004. JAMES STREET GASTROPUB & SPEAKEASY. Ritchie Cole & Alto Madness Orchestra ft. Carey Evans, Fred Pugh, Carlton Leeper, Dr. James Johnson & Pam Johnson. WZUM: The Jazz Fundraiser. Ballroom. RML Jazz Live! North Side. 412-904-3335.

SAT 14 BACKSTAGE BAR AT THEATRE SQUARE. Jeremy Fisher Jr. & John Maione. Downtown. 412-325-6769. JAMES STREET GASTROPUB & SPEAKEASY. Tony Campbell Saturday Afternoon Jazz Session. North Side. 412-904-3335. THE MONROEVILLE RACQUET CLUB. Jazz Bean Live. Every Saturday, a different band. Monroeville. 412-728-4155. THE SPACE UPSTAIRS. Second Saturdays. Jazz-happening series feat. live music, multimedia experimentations, more. Hosted by The Pillow Project. Point Breeze. 412-225-9269.

SUN 15 ROCKS LANDING BAR & GRILLE. Tony Campbell & the Jazz Surgery. McKees Rocks. 412 - 857- 5809.

MON 16 HAMBONE’S. Ian Kane, Ronnie Weiss & Tom Boyce. Jazz Standards, showtunes & blues. Lawrenceville. 412-681-4318.

TUE 17 JAMES STREET GASTROPUB & SPEAKEASY. Interstellar Fusion Night: Starship Mantis & Big Nothing. North Side. 412-904-3335.

ACOUSTIC THU 12 DOWNEY’S HOUSE. Snarfunkle. Robinson. 412-489-5631. RIVERS CASINO. Ezra John Acoustic. North Side. 412-231-7777.

FRI 13 THE SOUTH SIDE BBQ RESTAURANT. Tony Germaine, singer/guitarist. South Side. 412-381-4566.

SAT 14 STRIKERS SPORTS BAR. Eclectic Acoustics. Washington. 304-748-6116. TABLE 86 BY HINES WARD. Right TurnClyde. Mars. 724-741-0860.

SUN 15 HAMBONE’S. Calliope Old Time Appalachian Jam. Lawrenceville. 412-681-4318.

WED 18 ALLEGHENY ELKS LODGE #339. Pittsburgh Banjo Club. Wednesdays. North Side. 412-321-1834. PARK HOUSE. Shelf Life String Band. North Side. 412-224-2273.

REGGAE THU 12 PIRATA. The Flow Band. Downtown. 412-323-3000.

FRI 13 CAPRI PIZZA AND BAR. Bombo Claat w/ VYBZ Machine Intl Sound System. East Liberty. 412-362-1250.

COUNTRY WED 18 BELVEDERE’S. Jayke Orvis. Lawrenceville. 412-687-2555.

OTHER MUSIC THU 12 LINDEN GROVE. Karaoke. Castle Shannon. 412-882-8687.

FRI 13 LINDEN GROVE. JukeBox Band. Castle Shannon. 412-882-8687. RIVERS CASINO. Scott & Rosanna. North Side. 412-231-7777.

SAT 14 RIVERS CASINO. The Hitchhikers. North Side. 412-231-7777.

WED 18 CLUB CAFE. Rebirth Brass Band. South Side. 412-431-4950.

PAID ADVERTORIAL SPONSORED BY

What to do Jan

IN PITTSBURGH

11 - 17

REEL BIG FISH & ANTI-FLAG STAGE AE JANUARY 11

WEDNESDAY 11 NEW HAZLETT THEATER North Side. For tickets and more info visit warhol.org. 8p.m.

Reel Big Fish & Anti-Flag

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

THURSDAY 12

FRIDAY 13 135

SMILING MOOSE South Side. 412-431-4668. With special guests Primer and Greyscale & Curse Words. All ages show. Tickets: ticketfly.com or 1-877-4-FLY-TIX. 7p.m.

The Toasters CLUB CAFE South Side. 412-431-4950. With special guests iNCO fIDO & No Person. Over 21 show.

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MONDAY 16

Man About a Horse CLUB CAFE South Side. 412-431-4950. Over 21 show. Tickets: ticketweb.com/ opusone. 8p.m.

Let Freedom Sing

STAGE AE North Side. With special guests Ballyhoo! & Direct Hit! All ages show. Tickets: ticketmaster.com or 1-800-745-3000. Doors open at 6p.m.

Pianos Become the Teeth

PHOTO: JONATHAN THORPE

PHOTO: MEGAN THOMPSON

Forced Entertainment: Real Magic

Free event. Free eve vent nt For For more info inf visit warhol.org. 2p.m.

BYHAM THEATER Downtown. 412-456-6666. Tickets: trustarts.org. 7p.m. With special guests Keystone Vibe & iNCO FIdO. Over 21 show. Tickets: ticketfly.com or 1-877-4-FLY-TIX. 9:30p.m.

REX THEATER South Side. 412-381-6811. With special guests Incendiary, Wisdom in Chains, Eternal Sleep & more. All ages show. Tickets: ticketfly.com or 1-877-4-FLY-TIX. 7p.m.

The Pietasters HARD ROCK CAFE Station Square. 412-481-ROCK.

MUSIC

HEINZ HALL Downtown. 412-456-6666. Tickets: trust arts.org. Through Jan. 15.

Gang. Over 16 show. Tickets: ticketfly.com or 1-877-4-FLY-TIX. 8p.m.

TUESDAY 17

Bonnie Whitmore

The Suitcase Junket

Code Orange “Forever” Album Release Show

Beethoven’s Seventh

Run The Jewels: Run the World Tour

Sesame Street Live: Make a New Friend

STAGE AE North Side. All ages show. Tickets: ticketmaster.com or 1-800-745-3000. Doors open at 8p.m.

BENEDUM CENTER Downtown. 412-456-6666. Tickets: trustarts.org. Through Jan. 15.

SATURDAY 14

An MLK Celebration: Poetry Unplugged

Huey Mack

AUGUST WILSON CENTER Downtown. 412-456-6666. Tickets: awc.trustarts.org. 8p.m.

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REX THEATER South Side. 412-381-6811. With special guests Palermo Stone & DJ Spillz, Tristin Dare, and Mazur

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CLUB CAFE South Side. 412-431-4950. With special guest Grandadchilds. Over 21 show. Tickets: ticketweb.com/opusone. 7p.m.

Circa Survive On Letting Go 10 Year Tour

One-Man Star Wars Trilogy BYHAM THEATER Downtown. 412-456-6666. Tickets: trustarts.org. 7p.m.

Sip & Sketch ACE HOTEL East Liberty.

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CLUB CAFE South Side. 412-431-4950. With special guests Kayla Schureman & John Osborne Farley. Over 21 show. Tickets: ticketweb.com/ opusone. 8p.m.

STAGE AE North Side. With special guests mewithoutYou & Turnover. All ages show. Tickets: ticketmaster.com or 1-800-745-3000. Doors open at 7p.m.

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[COMEDY]

HE WORKED OUT WITH DUMBBELLS AND WAS NEVER SATISFIED WITH HIS OWN NOSEJOB

GIFT OF GAB Why is a music label venturing into standup comedy, with a local comic’s very first live album? For Pittsburgh-based Misra Records, it makes sense if the comedian is Gab Bonesso. The self-described “7-year-old trapped in an adult’s body” has been one of the area’s top comics for years, and was a pioneer of Pittsburgh’s contemporary underground comedy scene. “She’s very much a rock ’n’ roll comedian,” says Misra general manager Jeff Betten. “She’s got the energy and the enthusiasm.” Misra, founded in 2015, boasts national acts like the band Destroyer, and locals like rapper Mars Jackson. Now it has signed Betten’s fellow Robinson Township native Bonesso. She’ll record material for the live release in two hour-long sets on Jan. 13 and 14, at Arcade Comedy Theater. Bonesso studied theater at Duquesne University, and started doing comedy in 2002, after graduating. She’s taken such national stages as The New York City Underground Comedy Festival, has featured for names including Jen Kirkman and John Hodgman, and locally hosts her own anarchic monthly comedy nights at Brillobox. She also performs regularly at Arcade and McKees Rocks’ Parkway Theater. “My style is very hyperbolic memoir,” she says: mostly true stories about things like being raised by quirky ItalianAmerican parents; being a politically liberal suburban eccentric; and struggling with mental illness. Her observations can be off-the-wall: “I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing if an orphan gets kidnapped. I mean, somebody wanted you, right?” she has asked. Bonesso also mines her unusual day job: In 2012, with musician Josh Verbanets, she formed the Josh & Gab Show, a musical and comedic anti-bullying duo that performs in schools, summer camps and churches. The Show’s traveled to nine states and Mexico, and frequently books three performances daily. That project suggests Bonesso’s serious side, and indeed, she spent eight years as a caregiver to her mother, who died last year, and she’ll dedicate the forthcoming live album (planned for release in April) to her brother, Peppy, who died just weeks ago. But the Bonesso of Josh & Gab is just as goofy as (if less profane than) nightclub Gab. Live-recording audiences will experience the full spectrum. On the album, she says, “I really want to get a little bit of every aspect of Gab.” DRISCOLL@PGHCITYPAPER.COM

GAB BONESSO 8 p.m. Fri., Jan. 13, and 8 p.m. Fri., Jan. 14. Arcade Comedy Theater, 811 Liberty Ave., Downtown. $12. www.arcadecomedytheater.com

Gab Bonesso

{BY BILL O’DRISCOLL}

{IMAGES COURTESY OF THE ANDY WARHOL MUSEUM}

Andy Warhol’s “Physiological Diagram” (1985)

[ART REVIEW]

BODY OF WORK {BY BILL O’DRISCOLL}

ISCERNING WHAT motivates an

artist is tricky, but you might think it’d be easier with Andy Warhol. Drawn to celebrity and consumer products, Warhol avowedly made a career of manipulating surfaces, and he left behind an archive’s-worth of source materials and other keepsakes for scholars to contemplate. He got a nose job in the 1950s, wore a wig his entire adult life, and strenuously courted the company of people decidedly more glamorous than himself. He was also a young gay man back when that was basically illegal, even in New York City. So when in Andy Warhol: My Perfect Body, at The Andy Warhol Museum, we see images of mangled, warped or surgically altered bodies, it’s tempting to conclude that Warhol was heavily driven by dissatisfaction with his own hide. Indeed, one of the exhibit’s more provocative assertions is that images of newspaper-ad bodybuilders started appearing in Warhol’s work just as he was transitioning from commercial art to his era-deﬁning pop art — a metaphor that, whether con-

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 01.11/01.18.2017

scious or unconscious, suggests that for Warhol, making art was simply part of the slightly larger project of remaking his unsatisfactory self. “The exhibition,” says its curator, the Warhol’s Jessica Beck, in press materials, “asserts that Warhol’s engagement with Pop started with the body.”

ANDY WARHOL: MY PERFECT BODY continues through Jan. 22. The Andy Warhol Museum, 117 Sandusky St., North Side. 412-237-8300 or www.warhol.org

Perfect Body is broadly chronological. Student works like Warhol’s humorously grotesque 1948 self-portrait “Nosepicker II,” hang alongside such expressions of corporeal distress as “Constipated Woman,” “Man With Lines Exuding from Mouth” (read: projectile vomit) and a female nude almost gratuitously covered in lesion-like spots. Nearby loom two alternate versions (1961 and ’62) of “Before and After,”

Warhol’s large-scale, pre-soupcan takes on a magazine ad for rhinoplasty, the woman’s nose ﬁrst hooked, then, suddenly, pert. Things get rougher with four large silkscreens from the Warhol’s “death and disaster” series, whose source materials were news photos. In 1963’s “Ambulance Disaster,” a body sprawls headﬁrst from the smashed vehicle’s window; the lower of two frames is nearly identical except that the victim’s bloodied face is obscured by a splash of pigment. By contrast, the Empire State Building suicide jumper in “1947 White” (1963) somehow still looks magazine-cover-ready after plummeting 86 stories, resting face-up in the body-shaped dent she’s made in the parked limo as though it were a bed of silken cushions. Elsewhere, Perfect Body highlights Warhol’s return, in the ’80s, to his early pop style. A few large-scale late works utilize medical illustrations, like the wall-sized “Physiological Diagram”: the outline of a headless body, its digestive tract rendered in orange, with a broken-

out enlargement of the heart floating alongside what looks, cryptically, like a “play” symbol from an electronic device. The circa-1982 “Physiological Drawing Diagram (Penis in the Chest)” is another outline, but unnervingly, the headspace is blank except for two black spots bold as bulletholes, and depending from one pec is the silhouette of male genitalia. Such anatomical disarray recalls the aftermath of Warhol’s 1968 shooting; in an adjacent display case, a 1987 Richard Avedon photo of Warhol showing his many scars joins an alarming Jack Smith photo of a limp Warhol being borne into the ambulance, and such memento mori as one of Andy’s custom wigs and his collection of creepy metal dental molds. So there’s plenty of evidence to support the labels for the show’s several sections, which trend unhappy: “Trauma,” “Torment,” “Shame.” But even in this exhibit, they’re not the whole story. Warhol’s early ﬁne-art work exhibited here also includes his “Boy Portraits” of the 1950s, publicly exhibited (and surely a bit shocking at the time) ink sketches of three barechested young men and one naked, each bedizened with little cartoon hearts. The naked boy’s single heart adorns his glans. This section of the exhibit is labeled

Andy Warhol’s “The Last Supper” (1986)

If “Warhol’s engagement with Pop started with the body,” why did it reach its apotheosis with soup cans and Brillo boxes? As the exhibit’s introductory photo display, titled “Warhol’s Beauty Problems,” notes, Warhol suffered terrible childhood skin problems and as a young man visited beaches fully clothed. He had a conﬂicted relationship with his body; many of us do. Yet Warhol also clearly loved other bodies. So why was he at one point consumed by depicting them catastrophically killed? And how much of what one might view as self-loathing, anxiety or torment — going back to juvenilia like “Nosepicker II” — could as easily be interpreted as the result of a simple de-

“Desire,” but even outside of it, the body is often celebrated, uncritically if sometimes amusingly. Video projections include excerpts of both Warhol’s 1963 epic “Sleep,” featuring his lover, John Giorno, and “Superboy” (1966), the latter a cut of prime beefcake. Nudes like “Shaved Vagina” and “Torso From Behind,” painted in peach and deep black shadow, are as cheeky as the ﬁve aligned butts in 1977’s “Torso Posterior View (5).” The acrylic-and-silkscreen-ink work “Jean Michel Basquiat” (1984), depicts its famous subject in negative, sectioned off, and with an extra arm, but it’s still clearly a celebration of male beauty. All this prompts plenty of questions.

IT’S TEMPTING TO CONCLUDE THAT WARHOL WAS HEAVILY DRIVEN BY DISSATISFACTION WITH HIS OWN HIDE.

sire to shock that Warhol maintained into adulthood? And how much of his affection for anatomical illustrations and unironical line drawings of bodybuilders and nose jobs merely reﬂected his camp sensibility? While there’s no one right answer, Warhol plainly came of age (and came of age plainly) in the era of widespread plastic surgery and rising notions of physical “perfectability.” He worked out with dumbbells — watch him do pushups on Andy Warhol’s TV! — and was, according to wall text here, never satisﬁed with the results of his own nosejob. Yet later in life, according to exhibit text, he did become more comfortable with his body. And My Perfect Body is capped with a seeming note of acceptance, even beatitude. “The Last Supper (Be a Somebody with a Body)” (1985-86), a large-scale acrylic painting made to be viewed under black light, was part of a series commissioned to hang in a Milan commercial building across the street from the original. It depicts a cartoon bodybuilder beneath the title motto and alongside three identical images of Leonardo’s Christ, eyes closed and head bowed, rather doleful — perhaps like someone realizing he was stuck working with what he’d been born with. D RI S C OL L @ P G HC I T Y PA P E R. C OM

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principally follows Raymond Strader, a Marine sniper from Pennsylvania with days to go in his hitch, and a young North Vietnamese soldier named Truong Nghi; Strader is called back to the jungle after a listening post of his platoon is eliminated under suspicious circumstances. {BY BILL O’DRISCOLL} The early pages are notable for their intimate account of the dangers and disONLY IN AMERICA. John Soltez published comforts of jungle combat, and cogent dethis political satire in 2001 (on Gansevoort scriptions of action and place; lines like one Press), but the novel warrants a fresh look about two Vietnamese soldiers at night, in 2017: It’s about a political-novice billion- “their faces hovering in the dark above aire, who during a time of economic uncer- their cartridge vests like ancient masks tainty, pushes a presidential election into carved from granite,” stick in the mind. the electoral college by pandering to angry, Graham’s portrayal of American infantrymiddle-class white suburbanites, and vili- men feels credible; his characterizations fying political elites and the media. Soltez’ of the Vietnamese are sympathetic if a New Orleans-bred tycoon, Buck Fourcade, bit stiff. One main character is an Apache isn’t exactly a Trump: Folksy rather than Marine who is frequently at odds with his cruel, he closely recalls Texas billionaire fellow U.S. soldiers, and Graham’s take on Ross Perot, who twice ran for president in how both U.S. soldiers and the Vietnamese the 1990s (and in 1992 won almost 20 mil- view Native Americans is intriguing. lion votes); also like Perot, Fourcade is an independent rather than a major-party A QUESTION OF DEVOTION. In 2003’s candidate. Soltez’ wry, 249-page narra- Mill Hunks and Renegades, Anita Kulina tive (available only through Amazon) also chronicled the Pittsburgh neighborhood weaves in the effect of the election on the of Greenfield. With A Question of Devotion author’s Everyman, a small-town white- (published on her own Brandt Street Press, collar worker named Doug Murphy. Soltez’ 251 pp., $14.95), Kulina gives us a fictionaldepiction of Fourcade’s cult of personality ized version of the community. Burchfield is scarily prescient. And while the book’s is home to Mrs. B, a widow whose world epigrams, from something called The revolves around crossword puzzles, the seModern-Day Guide to Insurrection, are mor- nior center and St. Mary’s Church — until, dantly amusing, they also feel like nothing in “cozy mystery” style, she’s called on to to laugh at: One reads, “In America, king- be a detective. And of course, the mystery dom of television, would it not please the — a neighbor’s adult son is accused of empeople to be peddled a cartoon dictator?” bezzling from the church — is only half the attraction. The rest is Kulina’s loving porARIZONA MOON. Vietnam’s Arizona ter- traits of things like church fairs, couponritory, in the An Hoa basin, was notorious cutting, fussy-eating children, and seniors for its landmines and its bloody battles. It’s learning how to use the internet. The cover there that Gibsonia resident J.M. Graham, language, “A Mrs. B Mystery,” suggests a who in 1967 was a Marine combat corps- series is planned, and aficionados of both man in Vietnam, sets his novel (Naval cozies and Pittsburgh neighborhoods have Institute Press, 320 pp., $26.95). The story something to look forward to.

Reviews of the first 50 pages of works by local authors

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 01.11/01.18.2017

FOR THE WEEK OF

01.12-01.19.17 Full events listed online at www.pghcitypaper.com

{PHOTO COURTESY OF THERESA KEIL}

Yes, it’s got card tricks, mind-reading, straitjackets, sleight-of-hand and audience participation. But David London and Francis Menotti promise that their Cerebral Sorcery is no ordinary magic show. Rather, it’s a theatrical magic production that’s also “a philosophical journey into the human mind, and the quest for understanding.”

London and Menotti premiered Cerebral Sorcery in 2001, to explore magic as philosophy — or, as London puts it, “the contemplation of mysteries, and the contemplation of things we don’t understand.” They’ve since gone on to successful solo careers. London, based in Baltimore, stages nationally touring theatrical magic shows that blend storytelling, comedy and surrealism. The Philadelphia-based Menotti performs regularly at Hollywood’s Magic Castle and in 2015 stumped Penn & Teller on their TV show Fool Us. The Cerebral Sorcery revival, produced by Circus of Wonders, includes a four-city regional tour that stops at Downtown’s Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre space for eight shows from Jan. 13-21. The 80minute show revolves around London and Menotti’s quest to unlock a mysterious box. Each in the series of “magical vignettes” about solving the puzzle corresponds to a separate lock on the box, and each explores some philosophical idea about how we understand reality. “We use magic in an allegorical sense” to tie the show together, says Menotti. In short, Cerebral Sorcery promises all the razzle-dazzle of a traditional magic act, plus you go home bearing a parcel of existential conundrums (which is one reason it’s recommended for ages 16 and up). Says London, “The thinking part of the show is as important as the magic part of the show.” London and Menotti are offering a limited number of $13 tickets for the symbolically notable Friday the 13th show. Topshelf VIP tickets include a pre-performance close-up magic show. And you’ll save 50 percent on any general-admission or VIP ticket with the promo code “HALFOFF.”

{ART BY CRYSTAL LATIMER}

^ Sat., Jan. 14: R|EVOLVE

friday 01.13 “I think Sibelius is a composer that you really have to have the feel for — and even if you have the feel, you have to work really hard to make it work with the orchestra,” says Jukka-Pekka Seraste. Seraste, of Finland, counts the Sebelius Medal among his multiple awards and other international acclaim as one of the leading conductors of his generation. Tonight and Sunday, he returns to Heinz Hall for the first time since 1999 to lead the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in Sibelius’ Fifth and Beethoven’s Seventh symphonies. Amani Newton 8 p.m. Also 2:30 p.m. Sun., Jan. 15. 600 Penn Ave., Downtown. $20-94. 412-392-4900 or www.pittsburghsymphony.org

STAGE

For the past 40 years, New York’s legendary Nuyorican Poets Cafe has been dedicated to providing a stage for minority and underprivileged voices, whether poets, musicians, actors or writers. In honor of Martin Luther King Jr.’s

Jan. 13-21. 937 Liberty Ave., Downtown. $20-80. www.cerebralsorcery.com +

saturday 01.14 Attention, Star Wars superfans: Tonight, join Charles Ross in tribute to the original trilogy as he performs all the characters, sings all the songs, and acts out all the special effects in a solo performance titled, fittingly, One-Man Star Wars. The New York Times declares that the show “ends up achieving something like

WORDS

BY BILL O’DRISCOLL

NEWS

87th birthday, join Nuyorican poetry-program coordinator Mahogany L. Browne (pictured) and the cafe’s resident DJ, Jive Poetic, at the August Wilson Center for Poetry Unplugged, a night of poetry, music and social empowerment featuring nationally acclaimed artists Prentice Powell and Gabriela Garcia Medina. It’s presented by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. AN 8 p.m. 980 Liberty Ave., Downtown. $15. 412-456-6666 or www.trustarts.org

MUSIC

^ Fri., Jan. 13: Poetry Unplugged CONTINUES ON PG. 24

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monday 01.16 FESTIVALS

^ Sat., Jan. 14: One-Man Star Wars

If you’ve got off work or school today — and even if you don’t — there are plenty of options to celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Kids and families can start as early at 10 a.m., at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, with art activities honoring Pittsburgh’s landmark Freedom Corner; a chance to read a King speech aloud from a podium; and SLB Radio’s live, day-long webcast exploring civil rights. (Activities, which continue until 5 p.m., are free with museum admission.)

From noon-4 p.m., The Mattress Factory museum hosts its own Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday Bash; admission is free for activities including making a self-portrait and reading with author and storyteller Sydelle Pearl; creating a birthday crown; dancing to music; and crafting clay birds as part of the 1000 Birds Project. Snacks are provided.

Also from noon-4 p.m., stop by the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater for the 8th Annual East Liberty Celebrates MLK Day, with performances and activities. KST’s Together, We Build Community program includes activities hosted by the likes of Assemble, Big Brothers Big Sisters, BOOM Concepts, New Voices Pittsburgh and Reading Is Fundamental Pittsburgh; performers are by groups including 1HOOD, the Alumni Theater Company and Hope Academy. (Tickets are required, but admission is pay-what-makes-you-happy.)

From 2-7 p.m., the Union Project holds its 15th annual King Day celebration. The program, part of the Union Project’s Creative Conversation series, features workshops designed to bridge racial, economic and cultural gaps among attendees. The free event concludes with a meal.

Evening brings more performances. If you missed the 7 p.m. Sat., Jan. 14, iteration of the Tenth Annual Let Freedom Sing Concert (at Ebenezer Baptist Church, in the Hill District), the program repeats at 7 p.m. tonight at the Byham Theater. Let Freedom Sing blends oratory by talents, including Vanessa German, with music by The Heritage Gospel Chorale of Pittsburgh and the MLK Festival Choir, a chorus comprised of local high school, community and church choirs from the city and suburbs; there’s also dance, by the Trevor C. Dance Collective and Reed Dance II. Let Freedom Sing concerts benefit the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, with admission pegged at a donation of $1 or more.

Finally, at 9 p.m., the Bloomfield Bridge Tavern hosts the 29th annual MLK benefit concert for the North Side’s Duncan and Porter homeless shelter. The show features The Knauer Brothers, Qlitterati and Midnight Ensemble, plus a special tribute to the late, great local singer, bandleader and former MLK Day benefit-show stalwart Bobby Porter, by PhatManDee, Gena and Tommy Amoeba. Admission is a suggested donation of $5-10. Children’s Museum: 1 Children’s Way, North Side (www.pittsburghkids.org). Mattress Factory: 500 Sampsonia Way, North Side (www.mattress.org). Kelly-Strayhorn: 5941 Penn Ave., East Liberty (www.kelly-strayhorn.org). Union Project: 801 N. Negley Ave., Highland Park (www.unionproject.org). Let Freedom Sing: www.letfreedomsing.net. Duncan and Porter benefit: 4412 Liberty Ave., Bloomfield (412-682-8611). BY BILL O’DRISCOLL

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the spirit of a religious revival.” Costumes are encouraged, but be advised the theater will not allow helmets or masks. The show, at the Byham Theater, is presented by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. AN 7 p.m. 101 Sixth St., Downtown. $25-50. 412-456-6666 or www.trustarts.org

ART Quilt-like patterns mix with graffiti style and the silhouettes of soldiers, horses and villagers from Latin history, in the artwork of Crystal Latimer. “Yo soy Latina,” says Latimer, a locally based artist who explores hybrid identity and whose work has been shown internationally and at local galleries, the Three Rivers Arts Festival and Pittsburgh International Airport. R|EVOLVE, a new show of her paintings, drawings, collage and ceramic tile at The Gallery 4, opens tonight with a reception. Bill O’Driscoll 7-11 p.m. (free). Exhibit continues through Feb. 25. 206 S. Highland Ave., Shadyside. 412-363-5050 or www.thegallery4.us

BURLESQUE They call Eliza Sidecar “the Picasso of the pasties,” and tonight the Cleveland-based performer and producer is the featured guest at Chilly Nights, Warm Delights, the new ^ Sat., Jan. 14: Chilly Nights, Warm Delights show from Pittsburgh’s own Smokin’ Betties Burlesque. At Club Café, Betties members including DemDare Eyes and Gigi Coudry will perform late-night alongside special guests including such award-winners as Boom Boom Bridgette and drag king Devon Orel. BO 10:30 p.m. 56 S. 12th St., South Side. $10. www.smokinbetties.com

Celebrating our 25th Anniversary Season

EVERYONE IS A CRITIC

JOSH:

EVENT: Pittsburgh Unites! 15-hour Perform-a-thon and ACLU benefit, James Street Gastropub & Speakeasy, North Side CRITIC: Gina Winstead, 33, a nonprofit management worker from Mount Washington WHEN: Sat.,

Written by Michael A. Jones

Jan. 07

B Y AMANI NE WTO N

sunday 01.15

February 3rd - 12th

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EVENING PERFORMANCES: February 3, 4, 10, 11, 12 @ 7:30 PM

Musical Theatre Artists of Pittsburgh’s Hot Metal Musicals Incubator project gives writers and composers a chance to show their works in progress in public — and lets the public catch free readings of nascent works. Tonight, at Charles Gray Auditorium, a cast of 15 directed by Pittsburgh CLO’s Mark Fleischer performs The Storm, with book, music and lyrics by MTAP Executive Director Stephanie Riso. Shannon McCarren (pictured) sings the role of Vera, the wife of a wealthy estate-owner in 19thcentury Russia, who joins the movement to free the serfs. BO 7:30 p.m. 130 CLO Academy Way, Downtown. Free; reservations encouraged at www.artful.ly/store/events/10666.

tuesday 01.17 ART BoxHeart Gallery has selected its 2017 Artist of the Year: Alice Raymond, a Frenchborn artist who translates words into geometric drawings on reclaimed textile. Raymond’s debut solo exhibition in Pittsburgh, titled Nowhere & Now Here, opens today in BoxHeart’s main gallery. The upstairs gallery features Thresholds, by Pittsburgh-based Heather Heitzenrater, ^ Tue., Jan. 17: Nowhere & Now Here whose paintings incorporate reflective Mylar. Both artists will attend a joint opening reception at 5 p.m. Sat., Jan. 21. BO 11 a.m.-6 p.m. 4523 Liberty Ave., Bloomfield. 412-687-8858 or www.boxheartgallery.com

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MATINEE PERFORMANCES: February 4, 5, 11, 12 @ 3:00 PM February 6 @ 10:30 AM

THE FALK SCHOOL/UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH 4060 Allequippa Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 Parking across the street at V.A. TICKETS: call (412) 431-0773 or visit Dorsey’s Records on Frankstown Ave. or visit brownpapertickets.com $20 General Admission $15 Senior rates for persons 65 years and older. Group rates of 10 or more available. For more info visit newhorizontheater.org

{ART BY ALICE RAYMOND}

^ Sun., Jan. 15: The Storm

Directed by Charles Dumas

The story of Negro League Baseball Player Josh Gibson, whom some say died of a broken heart. As his good friend, pitching legend Satchel Paige, tries to shed light on the business of baseball, Josh is determined to make it in the big leagues and show that he can rival the greats like Joe DiMaggio and Babe Ruth.

It was a phenomenal and eye-opening event. I’m really appreciative of the people who came out to support the ACLU, and I feel like it was representative of the type of people who they’re trying to advocate for. There was this one young poet named Brittney Chantele who performed, and she was really phenomenal. I feel like if people paid more attention to the type of poetry and spoken word she was doing that they would be a lot more aware of issues in the city and in the country.

{PHOTO COURTESY OF SHANNON MCCARREN}

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THE TRICK IS NOT SO MUCH IN THE COOKING BUT IN THE FLAVORING

BUILD-A-BOWL Fast food was once defined by its rigid sameness, a trait that delivered both efficiency in preparation and expected results for the consumer. But over the years, diners demanded choices, so that everything from grab-and-go burgers, burritos and pizzas now are prepared with customer input. The same ethos applies at Noodle Uchi, a new casual eatery specializing in ramen along Oakland’s South Craig Street. The restaurant offers just eight “pre-set” noodle bowls; the dozens of other combinations are up to you. (Noodle Uchi is run by the folks at the nearby Sushi Fuku, which offers a similar you-pick set-up.) Similar to popular burrito chains, at Noodle Uchi, one moves down the counter, picking various options, while an employee assembles the bowl. Decide first whether it will be a cold noodle salad, hot noodle soup or a rice bowl. Even here, there are multiple options for brown or white rice, and four varieties of noodles. If you’re heading for soup, choose from four broths — miso pork, miso, tonkotsu (pork bone) or shoyu (soy sauce). Add a protein: chashu chicken, pork, salmon, barbequed eel, baked tofu or tempura-ed chicken, pork or shrimp. Then come the add-ins, including a selection of hot and cold sauces. Among the assorted toppings are green onions, bean sprouts, pickled ginger, bonito flakes, fresh spinach, edamame and corn. For a few cents more, top off with seasoned boiled egg, crispy onions and bamboo shoots. The process can be a little overwhelming, so those less familiar with mix-and-match Asian fare can opt for one of the eight fixed menu items. There’s tonkotsu ramen soup, with pork and boiled egg, or the teriyaki salmon rice bowl. Hard to go wrong with hybridized Tokyo chicken ramen salad, which offers a bit of everything: grilled chicken breast, cold noodles, fresh greens and lively toppings such as ginger, sesame seeds and edamame. Rounding out the menu is a small selection of sides, such as miso soup, kimchi, seaweed salad and takoyaki (fried octopus balls). AHOFF@PGHCITYPAPER.COM

Tokyo chicken ramen salad {CP PHOTO BY JOHN HAMILTON}

{BY AL HOFF}

{CP PHOTO BY VANESSA SONG}

Spicy hot pot, with mushrooms and combination meat platter

A POT FOR SHARING {BY ANGELIQUE BAMBERG + JASON ROTH}

styles of communal, one-pot cooking, especially those with winters that force people to huddle together indoors, seeking sources of heat and warm sustenance. Japan alone has several related but distinctive hot-pot traditions, together known as nabemono (“boiled things”). Until recently, this was just another obscure corner of Japanese cuisine overlooked in the American afﬁnity for sushi. But given Pittsburgh’s climate, is it any surprise that Japanese hot pots are ﬁnding a market here? We’re more surprised it has taken this long. In the heart of Oakland, Top Shabu Shabu takes its name from one of these styles of Japanese one-pot dining. Shabu shabu, in turn, takes its name from Japanese onomatopoeia for the sound of

415 S. Craig St., Oakland. 412-251-0541

ANY CULTURES have evolved

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cooking. In shabu shabu, diners are provided with a menu of raw meats and vegetables, thinly sliced, which they cook themselves at the table in pots of boiling broth and eat with dipping sauces and condiments. It’s related to sukiyaki, but with ﬂavorings more savory than sweet.

TOP SHABU SHABU 114 Atwood St., Oakland. 412-879-1555 HOURS: Mon.-Thu. 11 a.m.-10:30 p.m.; Fri.-Sun. 11 a.m.-11 p.m. PRICES: Soup base $6.95, plus ingredients ($2-12 each) LIQUOR: Full bar

CP APPROVED Top Shabu Shabu is, perhaps, as much a testament to Pittsburgh’s growing Asian university population as to its long, cold

winters. It’s an unabashedly Asian restaurant; other than the English on the menu, nothing about it is tailored to American expectations. From the cool colors and polished stone of modern, cosmopolitan Asia, to the few, if any, concessions to American tastes on the menu, Top Shabu Shabu caters to its dining room ﬁlled with Asian and Asian-American customers, effortlessly navigating the complexities of tabletop boiling and barbecue. That’s not to say that less-experienced guests aren’t welcomed. On our visit, multiple servers stopped by to assist our party, both explaining the system and checking in to make sure things proceeded correctly, never condescending or interrupting. On paper, shabu shabu is fairly simple: You choose from three broths, which are delivered to your table in a pot and

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lowered into a receptacle with a heating element, such that the broth bubbles. You order from a wide array of proteins, vegetables and starches, and then cook them in the broth to your taste: longer for roots, but briefly for greens and shaved meats. Then you fish them out with a slotted ladle and finish with an array of sauces and condiments like minced garlic or cilantro. The trick is not so much in the cooking but in the flavoring. Although the broth was studded with aromatics like ginger and tamarind, most of the ingredients weren’t immersed in it for long enough to take on those flavors, and so relied upon the post-boil dipping sauces and condiments for rescue from utter blandness. Here, our inexperience put us at a disadvantage. While the solicitous staff could direct us to the condiment bar, no one can, of course, tell another what will taste best to them, leaving us to experiment with familiar (soy sauce) and less familiar (“hot pot sauce”) dips. Suffice it to say that there was a learning curve. The Korean barbecue was more forgiving. Also set into the table was a sort of electric grill with slots for fat to drain. The heat was rather modest, but the meats came sliced thin, so intensity was beside the point. Pork belly came with sliced onion and jalapeños to help build flavor, as well as a thin basting sauce. After multiple turns and bastes, a pair of scissors cut the strips into bite size, and they could be folded into romaine leaves for eating. We also ordered a couple pre-cooked appetizers and simple maki rolls from the recently added sushi bar. Fried dumplings were filled with chicken, not pork, but still packed plenty of flavor within a light wrapper browned to a crisp on just one side, leaving the rest of the dough cooked but pliant. Scallion pancakes had goldenbrown, flaky layers sheathing off. Beneath those layers they were perhaps a touch tough, but quite tasty. In the sushi, we appreciated that the rice was warm; the contrast between cold fish and warm rice being an element of sushi is all too often overlooked. But the best part may have been the salmon roll that was teardrop-shaped and then arrayed like leaves on a branch. Sushi at places where it isn’t the menu mainstay too often skimp on presentation, which is one of the pleasures of this iconic food. But the real reason to go to Top Shabu Shabu is in the name. Shabu shabu is communal, it’s cozy, and it’s fun. Go with a big group, order a whole bunch of soup ingredients (did we mention the mixed mushroom basket, with five varieties?), and enjoy this authentically Asian experience.

NorthSide Sandwich ars Running! Winner 3 Ye

Featuring Our Chef Adan Morales

WILKINSBURG} Colds plug our senses, making it impossible to absorb any information outside the sounds of coughing, echoing off the walls of Nyquil-numbed nasal passages. While we desire deeply to rejoice in the rich comfort of yesterday (even being able to smell the gravyladen pot pie would satisfy), we cannot overcome the tasteless, yet still bitter, truth: Being sick sucks.

Friday, January 13

HAPPY HOUR 11/2 /2 O OFF FF A ALL LL DRAFTS & $2 OFF MUNCHIES

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Here are a few recipes from my winter arsenal.

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FIRE CIDER It might sound like a flaming cocktail, but fire cider is a fermented tonic, sworn by some to prevent and remedy sickness. It is best taken preventatively, but is known to help speed recovery and regain the senses once one is already ill. This recipe is for a half-gallon.

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INGREDIENTS: • 6 inches fresh ginger, grated • 6 inches fresh horseradish, grated • ¼ cup fresh turmeric, grated • 6-8 cloves garlic, cut in half • 3 medium jalapeños, sliced into rings (other types of hot peppers may be used) • 1 tbsp. whole black peppercorns • 16-24 oz. apple-cider vinegar (depends on container)

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INSTRUCTIONS: Combine all ingredients in a glass jar. Pour in enough apple-cider vinegar to cover all ingredients by no less than 2 inches. There should be at least 1 inch of space between lid and liquid. Seal and place in a cool dark place. Store for no less than 1 month, and shake every other day.

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A Seelbach and an array of bitters

[ON THE ROCKS]

BITTERS BROKEN DOWN Taking closer look at a classic cocktail ingredient {BY DREW CRANISKY} AT EVERY BAR Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve worked, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve kept an array of bitters on the bar, ready to grab for dashing into Manhattans and Sazeracs. This inevitably leads to guests rifling through the bottles, sometimes mistaking them for condiments. And though theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d probably regret dumping Angostura bitters on their French fries, the instinct is not far off. The bitters box is indeed â&#x20AC;&#x153;the bartenderâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s spice rackâ&#x20AC;?: Applied the way a chef uses salt, bitters have the power to heighten, deepen and round out a variety of classic and modern cocktails. Like so many potables, bitters began as medicine. For centuries, people have infused herbs, barks and botanicals into high-proof alcohol to make tinctures for various ailments. In 19th-century America, medicinal bitters took off, with dubious entrepreneurs across the country marketing varieties that could cure everything from rheumatism to â&#x20AC;&#x153;liver complaint.â&#x20AC;? Of course, soon folks were also mixing them with spirits. A simple combination of whiskey, sugar, water and bitters gave us a cocktail we still know and love â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the old-fashioned. Many bitters companies dried up with Prohibition and, for much of the 20th century, the distinctive yellow cap and oversized label of the Angostura bottle stood alone on the backbar. But with the modern cocktail renaissance, bartenders began to demand a broader array of bitters. Today, hundreds of varieties are readily available, from classics like orange to more exotic offerings (Jamaican jerk, anyone?). And since bitters are classiďŹ ed as â&#x20AC;&#x153;non-potableâ&#x20AC;? (the government assumes that you wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get sauced

off bitters alone), they can be bought from grocery stores and online retailers. Modern cocktail bars boast dozens of house-made and commercial bitters. Your home collection neednâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be so ambitious. Angostura bitters are as indispensable as ever, and their robust aromas of backing spice play beautifully with aged spirits. Peychaudâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, a vibrant red bitters that boasts notes of anise, are critical for Sazeracs and other classic cocktails. If those two bottles ignite the bitters fever, start exploring! Orange and grapefruit are nice to have on hand, and I am especially fond of Fee Brothers Whiskey Barrel-Aged Bitters. Locally, Wigle Whiskey makes a line of bitters, including a mole version that bursts with cocoa and toasty chiles. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll leave you with a recipe that puts those new bottles to good use. The Seelbach has a lovely backstory about a clumsy pre-Prohibition bartender who accidently spilled Champagne into a Manhattan. Recently, it was revealed that the drink (along with the story) was actually invented in the 1990s, by bartender Adam Seger. Regardless, the Seelbach is a bubbly, bitters-laden delight.

The Seelbach â&#x20AC;˘ 1 oz. bourbon â&#x20AC;˘ Âž oz. Cointreau â&#x20AC;˘ 7 dashes Angostura bitters â&#x20AC;˘ 7 dashes Peychaudâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bitters â&#x20AC;˘ Sparkling white wine Stir first four ingredients with ice until chilled. Strain into a Champagne flute. Top with sparkling wine. Garnish with an orange twist. I N F O@ P G HC I T Y PA P E R. C OM

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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 them both 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.

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THE WORK IS A REAL SHOWCASE FOR ISABELLE HUPPERT

OTHER PEOPLE’S POLITICS {BY AL HOFF} The long holiday weekends proved to be the perfect time to dive into Borgen, the Danish TV series from 2010-2013, lazily but not inaccurately pitched as “Denmark’s West Wing.” The 10-part Season 1 sets up two co-dependent camps: the government, as represented by a new prime minister, and the media, here a TV news organization.

Sidse Babett Knudsen and Pilou Asbaek in Borgen

The hook is that a relative newbie, Birgitte Nyborg (Sidse Babett Knudsen, from Westworld), has won the prime minister’s seat. Thus, there are procedures to be explained, mistakes to be made, compromises to be brokered and hard bargains to be suffered. At her side at the office is her slick and cynical “spin doctor,” Jasper (Pilou Asbaek); at home, there is a supportive but increasingly beleaguered husband, two adorable kids and a closet full of skirts that don’t fit. Chasing the news is the ambitious Katrine (Birgitte Hjort Sorensen), whose bedmates include some key political players. Toss in assorted staffers, a problem of the week and simply on-point neck scarves, and you’ve got a decent serial drama that neatly toggles between real-life issues and soapier entertainment. One pointed theme is how heavily the work-family balance falls on women, even in such a socially enlightened nation as Denmark; the better Nyborg fares at running the country, the worse her home life suffers. (Though we are also getting a newbie head of state, Borgen cannot serve as insight into the Trump administration, alas.) It’s also fascinating to see familiar political and diplomatic issues filtered through another country’s perspective. The U.S. and its global military reach come in for a bit of a drubbing in an episode concerning the travails of Greenland and its disgruntled Inuit population. You could do worse than to put on your coziest socks and vicariously enjoy a political sphere that seems almost magically more refined than ours — one where everybody works at standing desks, government ministers bicycle to work, lovers snuggle under puffy eiderdowns and fresh fruit rests in artfully shaped glass bowls. AHOFF@PGHCITYPAPER.COM

Seasons 1-3 are available on DVD (including at the Carnegie Library), iTunes and other streaming services.

Looking: Isabelle Huppert

IT’S PERSONAL {BY AL HOFF}

UTCH DIRECTOR Paul Verhoeven has

always been a provocateur, whether in his better ﬁlms like Robocop and Starship Troopers or his enjoyable trashfests like Showgirls. No surprise then that his latest ﬁlm, Elle, opens with a rape in progress, as a middle-aged woman is attacked in her own home by a ski-masked assailant. After the assault, the woman reacts rather sanguinely. She tidies up, takes a bath, orders sushi by phone. She does not contact the police. She, in fact, goes on with her day-to-day life, sorting through various domestic and work issues. Michele Leblanc (Isabelle Huppert) is divorced and lives alone, but interacts frequently with a close (if problematic) “family” circle: There is her layabout adult son and his awful girlfriend; her ex-husband (and his new girlfriend); her bon vivant mother (and her boy toy); her best friend and business partner; her lover (the husband of BFF); and some chatty neighbors. Verhoeven keeps the focus on Michele, and these folks weave through her life,

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 01.11/01.18.2017

gradually illuminating but not totally explaining Michele’s character and her response to the rape. The ﬁlm is a hybrid: part slow-burn revenge thriller as Michele seeks her rapist, and part potboiler incorporating several standard melodramatic storylines. There are elements of dark comedy — the rape has a witness, a pet cat that just looks on coolly, as cats do — and these typical French bourgeois characters are slightly exaggerated to illustrate unpleasant traits like fecklessness or rudeness.

ELLE DIRECTED BY: Paul Verhoeven STARRING: Isabelle Huppert, Laurent Lafitte, Jonas Bloquet Starts Fri., Jan. 13 at AMC Loews Waterfront, and Jan. 20 at Harris In French, with subtitles

Viewers should know that the ﬁlm steers into increasingly baroque psychosexual territory. The rapist begins to taunt Michele, and she seems more intrigued

than frightened; she mentally revisits the assault, playing out different scenarios, but not with the responses we’d expect. We learn that a steady stream of violence and sexual drama has run through Michele’s life; we are witnessing a resolute woman who has developed sturdy coping skills, be they for her family’s dark history or the jerks she has to put up with at work. She’s unapologetic, summing up an assortment of bad behavior: “Shame isn’t a strong enough emotion to stop us from doing anything at all.” Even if you’re ﬁne with the tricky subject matter, Elle suffers from too many subplots, and runs on 15 minutes too long. But the work is a real showcase for Huppert, who at 63 is wiry, intense and utterly compelling. Michele is not likable in the standard sense — she is ﬂinty, even cruel — but Huppert makes her somebody you can’t look away from. There’s a fair amount of pulpy nonsense and borderline exploitative material that swirls around, but Huppert grounds most of it. A H OF F @ P G HC I T Y PA P E R. C OM

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NEW THE BYE BYE MAN. Stacy Title directs this horror thriller about some college kids who unleash a supernatural entity. Starts Fri., Jan. 13 LIVE BY NIGHT. Ben Affleck stars as a gangster in this crime drama, adapted from a Dennis Lehane novel, set during Prohibition. Elle Fanning and Brendan Gleeson also star; Affleck directs. Starts Fri., Jan. 13 MONSTER TRUCKS. A guy working at a scrapyard discovers a weird creatures and uses it to power his truck. Chris Wedge directs this family film starring Lucas Till. Starts Fri., Jan. 13 PATRIOTS DAY. Peter Berg directs this docudrama that recounts the events of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, and the subsequent search for the bombers. Mark Wahlberg and J.K. Simmons star. Starts Fri., Jan. 13 SILENCE. In the 17th century, two Catholic missionaries (Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver) travel to Japan to search for their lost mentor (Liam Neeson). Martin Scorsese directs this drama. Starts Fri., Jan. 13 SLEEPLESS. A cop searches the criminal underworld for his kidnapped son. Jamie Foxx, Michelle Monaghan and Dermot Mulroney star in Baran bo Odar’s thriller. Starts Fri., Jan. 13 UNDERWORLD: BLOOD WARS. The vampires and werewolves continue to fight in this ongoing campy horror franchise. Kate Beckinsale and Theo James star; Anna Foerster directs.

Sleepless is as raucous as it is lyrical. In Italian, with subtitles. 7:20 p.m. Thu., Jan. 12. Row House Cinema CRASH. James Spader and Holly Hunter star in David Cronenberg’s 1996 adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s novel, which depicts folks who are sexually aroused by automobile crashes. Jan. 13-16 and Jan. 18. Row House Cinema EASTERN PROMISES. The diary of a dead teenage prostitute leads a midwife (Naomi Watts) into the shadowy world of London’s vory v zakone, or Russian organized crime, a diasporic culture nimbly adjusting to the very worst aspects of an open society. Her concern and blithe impulsiveness provide the catalyst to the film’s real drama — a three-way power struggle between the avuncular but bloodless paterfamilias (Armin Mueller-Stahl), his weak son, Kirill (Vincent Cassel), and Kirill’s driver, Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen). Penned by Steven Knight, David Cronenberg’s 2007 thriller-cum-character-study is a dark morality play — occurring, naturally, at Christmas, and involving a stray infant — complete with angels, devils and an emerging savior. For a Cronenberg flick about a violent subculture, the film is surprisingly restrained, despite a couple of gruesome scenes involving cutting implements. Mortensen’s sardonic, enigmatic Nikolai owns the story — and this film. His sleek, serpentine Nikolai — who even sports tattooed markings warning “beware” — lies coiled, coolly observant and unreadable: ready to strike or slither away. In English, and Russian, with subtitles. Jan. 13-19. Row House Cinema (Al Hoff)

SCANNERS. A man with telekinetic powers is recruited to wipe out an underground group of bad-acting telekinetic folks in David Cronenberg’s 1981 sci-fi horror film. Those sensitive to seeing heads explode should stay away. Jan. 13-16 and Jan. 18-19. Row House Cinema

Underworld: Blood Wars

REPERTORY LA NOTTE. An unfaithful married couple (Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau) experience another night of their deteriorating relationship in Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1961 drama. In Italian, with subtitles. 3:35 p.m. Wed., Jan. 11, and 9:50 p.m. Thu., Jan. 12. Row House Cinema THE GREAT BEAUTY. In this arty, stylized 2013 Italian drama, Paolo Sorrentino spotlights a 65-year-old Roman society fixture who is growing contemplative about the meaning of his life. In Italian, with subtitles. 10:20 p.m. Wed., Jan. 11. Row House Cinema BREAD AND TULIPS. In Silvio Soldini’s 2000 comedy, a housewife, left behind on a bus tour, decides to start a new life for herself in Venice. In Italian, with subtitles. 5 p.m. Thu., Jan. 12. Row House Cinema AMARCORD. In Federico Fellini’s 1973 eulogy for his boyhood, the sex scenes, adolescent pranks and other earthy antics merely assure that our picture of little coastal Rimini in the 1930s

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VIDEODROME. The head of a TV network thinks he has found a source for edgy new programming, but it turns out to be so much more complicated. James Woods and Debbie Harry star in David Cronenberg’s 1983 thriller that foresaw a lot of technological and ethical concerns around virtual reality. Jan. 13-17 and Jan. 19. Row House Cinema PURSUING HAPPINESS. Adam Shell’s featurelengthy 2015 documentary travels the U.S.A. looking for people who have achieved happiness, even in spite of hardships. The film features Pittsburgher Randy Gilson, who turned a once-bleak corner of the city into North Side’s popular and colorful Randyland. 7 p.m. Sat., Jan. 14, and 7 p.m. Sun., Jan. 15. Alphabet City, 40 W. North Ave., North Side. Free; RSVP at www.alphabetcity.org.

Call today to schedule a visit! Bethel Park

KEEP ON KEEPIN’ ON. Alan Hicks’ 2014 documentary profiles the friendship of music legend Clark Terry, who, at age 89, take on a student, Justin Kauflin, a 23-year-old blind piano prodigy. The pair are aiming for a jazz competition, but each is beset with challenges that they work through. The film is co-presented by Sembène —The Film & Art Festival. 7 p.m. Wed., Jan. 18. 40 W. North Ave., North Side. Free; RSVP at www.alphabetcity.org.

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ALL SKATE {BY CHARLIE DEITCH}

SPORTS MADE OBAMA SEEM REGULAR IN A WAY THAT OTHER PRESIDENTS DIDN’T

When Glenshaw’s historic Romp ’N Roll roller rink announced its closure in October, it signaled bad news for the women of the Steel City Roller Derby. Without a new home, the league would likely be forced to fold. But that won’t happen now. On Jan. 1, the group announced it would be moving to the Pittsburgh Indoor Sports Arena, in Cheswick, for its future practices and matches. The move came after an extensive search.

{CP PHOTO BY STEPHEN CARUSO}

Steel City Roller Derby in action

“From the very beginning of our relationship, PISA’s ownership and staff have displayed their enthusiasm for roller derby and welcomed us with open arms,” Ally McKill, one of SCRD’s founding skaters, said in a press release. “We’ve been impressed with their willingness to accommodate the needs of our league; everything from practice and game timing to setting up the space just the way we like it.” The site is 15 minutes by car from Downtown, and also has a bar and restaurant on site. The first event in the new space will be an intra-league doubleheader held Jan. 22. The PISA is located at 22 Rich Hill Road, in Cheswick. But you don’t have to go and just watch the action. The SCRD will hold tryouts in March. To take part, potential derby skaters must first attend one boot-camp session to learn what a tryout will entail. Boot camps will be held Jan. 24, Jan. 31, Feb. 8, Feb. 13 and Feb. 22. For more information, go to www.steelcityrollerderby.org. CDEITCH@PGHCITYPAPER.COM

GOT A TIP? Know of a local sport that isn’t getting the attention it deserves? Did a local athlete just do something incredible that warrants recognition? City Paper Sports want to hear about it: info@pghcitypaper.com

{OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE PHOTO BY PETE SOUZA}

President Barack Obama watching Super Bowl XLIII in February 2009

NO. 1 FAN {BY CHARLIE DEITCH}

HE PICTURE sitting above these

words might seem like a strange lead-in for a sports story, but it is definitely a sports photo. It was taken on Feb. 1, 2009, during the SteelersCardinals matchup in Super Bowl XLIII. It’s also the photo that made me realize I had voted for the right guy less than three months earlier. When I first saw the image of newly elected President Barack Obama slumped down slightly in a big old comfy chair, feet up watching the Super Bowl, I knew he was our guy. There was nothing stuffy about him. He loved sports and, as we would find out, he loved the Steelers. “Other than the Bears,” the long-time Chicago resident had said a few days before the big game, “the Steelers are the team that’s closest to my heart.” It was almost too good to be true. All

he needed was an Iron City beer, a Terrible Towel and one of those knock-off Steelers T-shirts from a Strip District street vendor and he was one of us. But that moment wasn’t about football; it was about who he was and what he planned to do. He’d been president only a couple of weeks, and already he was working on his economic-stimulus plan. That screening room was ﬁlled with bipartisan legislators from Arizona and Pennsylvania. Obama knows how to bring people together, and his love of sports made him engaging, accessible and, in a way, familiar to the rest of us. He wasn’t the stuffed shirt awkwardly throwing out ﬁrst pitches, or tossing footballs like his arm was a catapult instead of a rocket launcher. Sports made Obama seem regular in a way that other presidents didn’t. The Bushes and Reagan seemed the opposite

of approachable, and while Bill Clinton tried to project the regular-guy vibe, it never seemed completely authentic. When the Steelers visited the White House after that Super Bowl win, Obama joined them on the White House lawn to assemble care packages for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Was it a photo op? Of course it was, but it wasn’t just a photo op: He was using the power of the ofﬁce to get things done for someone else. And that, I think will be his legacy: He never came off as selﬁsh or as an egomaniac. To me, he’ll be the guy who brought health care to millions of Americans; lowered unemployment to 4.6 percent; stabilized an economy on the verge of collapse; signed a repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell; and more. He was also the guy who picked the Steelers over the Cardinals. Thanks, Obama. C D E I T C H @ P G H C I T Y PA P E R. C OM

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 01.11/01.18.2017

[THE CHEAP SEATS]

COUNTY ALL-STARS {BY MIKE WYSOCKI} THE LONE BRIGHT spot of the Cleveland Browns’ abysmal 1-15 season was the emergence of wide receiver Terrelle Pryor. The 1,000-yard passer turned 1,000-yard receiver gave the Dawg Pound at least a couple of reasons to wag their beatendown tails. Pryor, from Jeannette, is in the conversation for the best all-around athlete to ever come out of Western Pennsylvania, and that’s saying something. It’s a far greater distinction than being the best athlete from eastern North Dakota. And yes, the Browns have a hold of him — you’re welcome, Cleveland. But Pryor is just one of the many contributions that Westmoreland County has made to the rest of the country. If you’ve ever eaten a banana split or watched Mister Rogers Neighborhood, you can thank our neighbors to the east. A town in Ohio once tried to claim the invention of the famous ice-cream delight, but a panel of dessert historians ruled against them. And while Fred Rogers is often named among the Steel City’s favorite sons, he was born in Latrobe, in Westmoreland County. And speaking of Latrobe, it’s also the very wellknown August home of Steelers Nation, and used to be the home of Rolling Rock beer. In 2006, Anheuser-Busch bought the company and moved it to New Jersey, the land of tanning beds and gold-chainwearing lunkheads. Other famous people who have called the county home include Shirley Jones, of The Partridge Family, and wellknown actress Frances McDormand, who played the pregnant Police Chief Marge Gunderson, who finds Peter Storemare shoving Steve Buscemi into that infamous wood-chipper in Fargo. But you didn’t come here to talk about Coen brothers films. Back to sports. The county’s sports royalty starts at the top with the legendary Arnold Palmer. His 62 PGA wins rank him fifth all-time in golf history. The late Palmer knocked the stuffiness out of the elitist game and opened it up to the common man. He was the first star of the new era of golf on television, and is still the only golfer to be bestowed with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Former heavyweight boxing champ Michael Moorer, who grew up in Monessen, compiled a 52-4-1 record in the sweet science. Moorer won the heavyweight title three times and is one of four men to ever do so, along with Lennox Lewis, Evander Holyfield and Muhammad Ali. Everyone knows that football rules Western Pennsylvania, and Westmoreland

{CP PHOTO BY LUKE THOR TRAVIS}

Terrelle Pryor

County is no exception. Youngwood-born George Blanda is a member of the Hall of Fame and played from 1949-1975 as both a quarterback and a kicker. His 26year NFL career has never been duplicated. When he finally retired after playing through six presidential administrations, he had accumulated 2,002 points, a record that stood for more than 20 years. Quarterback Willie Thrower, of New Kensington, was known for his cannon-like arm, which could fire the football 70 yards in the air. He won a national championship with Michigan State in 1952, and played QB for the Chicago Bears the following year, making him the first African-American quarterback in the NFL. Valley High School in New Kensington has a statue in his honor. Former Pitt lineman and pro football Hall of Famer Russ Grimm graduated from Southmoreland High School; he won three Super Bowls as a player under Joe Gibbs in Washington, D.C., and added a fourth ring as a coach for the Steelers in 2005. Local fans also know Dick Hoak, the former Steelers running back who went on to coach for the team for 35 years. Buddy Jeannette is not from Jeannette, but it’d be a lot cooler if he were. Jeannette, from New Kensington, is easily the county’s best basketball player, competing during the pre-NBA days of the NBL. He later had success as a coach for the Baltimore Bullets and the Pittsburgh Pipers of the ABA and, oh yeah, a stint helming the Georgetown Hoyas. The county even boasts a hockey player who came along at a time when America simply didn’t make hockey players. Lower Burrell’s Pete Babando helped the Detroit Red Wings raise Lord Stanley in 1950 by scoring the game-winner in doubleovertime of Game 7.

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HELP WANTED APPLICATION DEVELOPER HM Health Solutions Inc. seeks Application Developer to work in Pittsburgh, PA & to be responsible for analyzing, designing, coding, testing, & implementing app enhancements w/ no supervision. Must have Master’s or foreign equiv. in Comp. Sci., Info. Sci., Math, Stats, Economics, Engnrng, Operations Research, or rltd ﬁeld + 2 yrs of exp. in rltd position. Alt. req’t: bachelor’s or foreign equiv. in Comp. Sci., Info. Sci., Math, Stats, Economics, Engnrng, Operations Research, or rltd ﬁeld + 5 yrs of postbacc. & prgrssvly rspnsbl exp. in rltd position. Must know (from any comp’d university-lvl crswrk, seminars, wrkshps, or real world, hands-on exp.): Java; J2EE; DB2; Oracle; JavaScript; & Agile. Apply at www.highmarkhealth. org, keyword J101567.

STUDIES

Smokers Wanted! The University of Pittsburgh’s Alcohol and Smoking Research Laboratory is looking for people to participate in a three-part research project.

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

Job Fair - Come work with us! Familylinks is hiring direct care Teacher/ Counselors at our residential facilities in Plum, Verona, Uptown, McKeesport and Wilkinsburg. Opportunities include working with males and females between the ages of 12 and 21 years old with a mental health diagnosis. Hourly rates from $10.20 to $15.00 per hour based on location, having a degree and experience. Applicants must be 21 years old, have a valid driver’s license and access to transportation to and from the job site. A bachelor’s degree is preferred. Act 33, 34 and FBI clearances are required upon hire and applicants will be required to have a pre-employment drug screen and physical exam. If you’re looking for an opportunity at a nonprofit that helps families across western Pennsylvania, Familylinks is the place for you!

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WINTER GUIDE Coming January 18

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 01.11/01.18.2017

OFFICIAL ADVERTISEMENT

CHILLIN’ CHILLIN’

THE BOARD OF PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE SCHOOL DISTRICT OF PITTSBURGH

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

Sealed proposals shall be deposited at the Administration Building, Room 251, 341 South Bellefield Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pa., 15213, on February 7, 2017, until 2:00 P.M., local prevailing time for the following: Pittsburgh Allegheny K-5 Installation of Classroom Ceiling Fans Electrical Prime Pittsburgh Brashear H. S. ADA Toilet Room Renovations General, Plumbing, HVAC, and Electrical Primes Pittsburgh Colfax K-8 Restroom Renovations General, Asbestos, Plumbing, HVAC and Electrical Primes Pittsburgh Dilworth PreK-5 Auditorium Ventilation Unit Replacement General, Asbestos, Mechanical and Electrical Primes

ACROSS 1. With 9-Across, “12 Angry Men” star 5. E event 9. See 1-Across 13. Org. that saw its numbers increase when Trump was elected 14. “___ those lines” 16. Real stunner 17. Those keeping the beat? 19. Deadly sprayers 20. Put away some chips 21. Some kennel pickups 23. “Mr. Robot” network 25. Scandinavian goddess of fate 26. “Black Mass” star 29. Ready for sex, initially 32. Really close 35. Tech company’s debut, for short 36. Whence St. Teresa 38. Whence St. Catherine 40. “Guys and Dolls” character who sings “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat” 43. Dental crown alternative 44. Duchess’s headpiece 45. Acela stop: Abbr. 46. Cut off at the bar? 48. Wayne LaPierre’s org.

49. ___ and greet (reception) 50. Dom Pedro’s wife 52. Slice of baloney 54. Trivia night subjects 59. InDesign maker 63. Droid missive 64. Breaks up into smaller sections 66. Spin in the rink 67. Potter’s need 68. Chops (off) 69. Actress Daly 70. Potter’s need 71. Language of some Aer Lingus announcements

DOWN 1. Runners numbers 2. Wharton maj. 3. Lorde’s real first name 4. Toddler’s drink holder 5. WWII heroes: Abbr. 6. Italian auto, informally 7. Spoken aloud 8. Subject of the books “The Crooked E” and “Pipe Dreams” 9. Bringing up to speed 10. Lesbos liqueur 11. Russian pancake 12. Smack in the face? 15. Cosmo subject 18. Approves 22. Country star Yearwood

NEWS

24. Suggestion box stuff 26. Snorkasaurus of cartoons 27. Having characteristics of neither sex 28. FiveThirtyEight fodder 30. Pinball error 31. Arrive by jet 33. “Demian” author Hermann 34. Govt. investment bond 36. Fishing line? 37. Not quite shut 39. Body sci. 41. First professional football player to appear on the cover

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of Sports Illustrated 42. Verbal test 47. In itself 49. Interfere (with) 51. Diplomat Deane 53. Actor Ziering 54. Henri’s state 55. Like some sirens 56. Beasts of burden 57. Roman philosopher whose work “De Officiis” was the second printed book (after the Gutenberg Bible) 58. Sparkling wine city 60. Faint smell 61. Curls work them 62. “___ est percipi” 65. Lake Erie Monsters org.

Pittsburgh Morrow PreK-5 Roof Replacement General and Plumbing Primes Pittsburgh Perry H. S. New Theatrical Lighting and Sound System Electrical Prime Pittsburgh Various Pgh. Schools Carbon Monoxide and Heat Detection System Mechanical and Electrical Primes

{LAST WEEK’S ANSWERS}

Pittsburgh Westwood K-5 Elevator Addition General, Plumbing, HVAC and Electrical Primes Project Manual and Drawings will be available for purchase on January 9, 2017 at Modern Reproductions (412-488-7700), 127 McKean Street, Pittsburgh, Pa., 15219 between 9:00 A.M. and 4:00 P.M. The cost of the Project Manual Documents is non-refundable. Project details and dates are described in each project manual. We are an equal rights and opportunity school district. Parent Hotline: 412-622-7920 www.pps.k12.pa.us +

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Free Will Astrology

01.11-01.18

{BY ROB BREZSNY}

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): I recently discovered “Tree of Jesse,” a painting by renowned 20th-century artist Marc Chagall. I wanted to get a copy to hang on my wall. But as I scoured the internet, I couldn’t find a single business that sells prints of it. Thankfully, I did locate an artist in Vietnam who said he could paint an exact replica. I ordered it, and was pleased with my new objet d’art. It was virtually identical to Chagall’s original. I suggest you meditate on taking a metaphorically similar approach, Capricorn. Now is a time when substitutes may work as well as what they replace.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): “It is often safer to be in chains than to be free,” wrote Franz Kafka. That fact is worthy of your consideration in the coming weeks, Aquarius. You can avoid all risks by remaining trapped inside the comfort that is protecting you. Or you can take a gamble on escaping, and hope that the new opportunities you attract will compensate you for the sacrifice it entails. I’m not here to tell you what to do. I simply want you to know what the stakes are.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): “All pleasures are in the last analysis imaginary, and whoever has the best imagination enjoys the most pleasure.” So said 19th-century German novelist Theodor Fontane, and now I’m passing his observation on to you. Why? Because by my astrological estimates, you Pisceans will have exceptional imaginations in 2017 — more fertile, fervent and freedom-loving than ever before. Therefore, your capacity to drum up pleasure will also be at an all-time high. There is a catch,

however. Your imagination, like everyone else’s, is sometimes prone to churning out superstitious fears. To take maximum advantage of its bliss-inducing potential, you will have to be firm about steering it in positive directions.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): In Norse mythology, Yggdrasil is a huge holy tree that links all of the nine worlds to each other. Perched on its uppermost branch is an eagle with a hawk sitting on its head. Far below, living near the roots, is a dragon. The hawk and eagle stay in touch with the dragon via Ratatoskr, a talkative squirrel that runs back and forth between the heights and the depths. Alas, Ratatoskr traffics solely in insults. That’s the only kind of message the birds and the dragon ever have for each other. In accordance with the astrological omens, Aries, I suggest you act like a far more benevolent version of Ratatoskr in the coming weeks. Be a feisty communicator who roams far and wide to spread uplifting gossip and energizing news.

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TAURUS (April 20-May 20):

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):

You have a divine mandate to love bigger and stronger and truer than ever before. It’s high time to freely give the gifts you sometimes hold back from those you care for. It’s high time to take full ownership of neglected treasures so you can share them with your worthy allies. It’s high time to madly cultivate the generosity of spirit that will enable you to more easily receive the blessings that can and should be yours. Be a brave, softhearted warrior of love!

There are some authors who both annoy me and intrigue me. Even though I feel allergic to the uncomfortable ideas they espouse, I’m also fascinated by their unique provocations. As I read their words, I’m half-irritated at their grating declarations, and yet greedy for more. I disagree with much of what they say, but feel grudgingly grateful for the novel perspectives they prod me to discover. (Nobel Prize-winner Elias Canetti is one such author.) In accordance with the current astrological rhythms, Virgo, I invite you to seek out similar influences — for your own good!

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): I love and respect Tinker Bell, Kermit the Frog, Shrek, Wonder Woman, SpongeBob SquarePants, Snow White, Road Runner, and Calvin and Hobbes. They have provided me with much knowledge and inspiration. Given the current astrological omens, I suspect that you, too, can benefit from cultivating your relationships with characters like them. It’s also a favorable time for you to commune with the spirits of Harriet Tubman, Leonardo da Vinci, Marie Curie or any other historical figures who inspire you. I suggest you have dreamlike conversations with your most interesting ancestors, as well. Are you still in touch with your imaginary friends from childhood? If not, renew acquaintances.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): “I never wish to be easily defined,” wrote Cancerian author Franz Kafka. “I’d rather float over other people’s minds as something fluid and nonperceivable; more like a transparent, paradoxically iridescent creature rather than an actual person.” Do you ever have that experience? I do. I’m a Crab like you, and I think it’s common among members of our tribe. For me, it feels liberating. It’s a way to escape people’s expectations of me and enjoy the independence of living in my fantasies. But I plan to do it a lot less in 2017, and I advise you to do the same. We should work hard at coming all the way down to earth. We will thrive by floating less and being better grounded; by being less fuzzy and more solid; by not being so inscrutable, but rather more knowable.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Here’s my declaration: “I hereby forgive, completely and permanently, all motorists who have ever irked me with their rude and bad driving. I also forgive, totally and forever, all tech-support people who have insulted me, stonewalled me or given me wrong information as I sought help from them on the phone. I furthermore forgive, utterly and finally, all family members and dear friends who have hurt my feelings.” Now would be a fantastic time for you to do what I just did, Leo: Drop grudges, let go of unimportant outrage and issue a blanket amnesty. Start with the easier stuff — the complaints against strangers and acquaintances — and work your way up to the allies you cherish.

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PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 01.11/01.18.2017

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Now would be an excellent time to add new beauty to your home. Are there works of art or buoyant plants or curious symbols that would lift your mood? Would you consider hiring a feng shui consultant to rearrange the furniture and accessories so as to enhance the energetic flow? Can you entice visits from compelling souls whose wisdom and wit would light up the place? Tweak your imagination so it reveals tricks about how to boost your levels of domestic bliss.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): In 2017, you will have unprecedented opportunities to re-imagine, revise and reinvent the story of your life. You’ll be able to forge new understandings about your co-stars and reinterpret the meanings of crucial plot twists that happened once upon a time. Now check out these insights from author Mark Doty: “The past is not static, or ever truly complete; as we age we see from new positions, shifting angles. A therapist friend of mine likes to use the metaphor of the kind of spiral stair that winds up inside a lighthouse. As one moves up that stair, the core at the center doesn’t change, but one continually sees it from another vantage point; if the past is a core of who we are, then our movement in time always brings us into a new relation to that core.”

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): The Tao Te Ching is a poetically philosophical text written by a Chinese sage more than two millennia ago. Numerous authors have translated it into modern languages. I’ve borrowed from their work to craft a horoscope that is precisely suitable for you in the coming weeks. Here’s your high-class fortune-cookie oracle: Smooth your edges, untangle your knots, sweeten your openings, balance your extremes, relax your mysteries, soften your glare, forgive your doubts, love your breathing, harmonize your longings and marvel at the sunny dust. Tell a story about the time Spirit reached down and altered your course in one swoop. Go to RealAstrology.com and click on “Email Rob.”

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

Savage Love {BY DAN SAVAGE}

My partner and I have been playing with male chastity devices. We’ve been considering going to a strip club while his cock is caged up and getting him lap dances. Is there some etiquette for this with the dancers? Do we let the dancer know before she is on his lap? Or do we not mention it? Is it rude to get a dancer involved at all? I’ve not yet found an etiquette guide for this situation. LETTING OUR CAGE KINK SHOW

“I think I speak for most dancers when I say I don’t care what’s going on underneath a customer’s pants,” said Bobbi Hill, a lap dancer based in Portland, Ore., strip-club capital of the United States. “Grazing over a stiff object in the crotch region is not an uncommon experience when giving a lap dance, and depending on the texture of the device, I might not even give it a second thought.” While your concern for lap dancers is commendable, LOCKS, the person most at risk of injury is your partner. Nothing is more fun than inducing an erection in someone who’s locked in a male chastity device — a necessarily painful and punishing erection — but the devices are unyielding (ideally) and the cock flesh is weak (even when hard). A dancer who grinds down on your partner’s crotch is likelier to hurt him. That said, lap dancers don’t like surprises. If a dancer grinds down on your partner’s crotch and feels something hard, clunky and un-cock-like in his pants, “she might go into air-dance mode,” said Hill, “which is essentially a lap dance where you make as little contact with the customer’s crotch as possible. Of course, you can never go wrong investing in a stripper’s patience and well-being — try handing her a Benjamin as you explain your situation.” Just in case you’re not interested in dancers who are hers, LOCKS, I ran your question by a male stripper. “I don’t think most dancers would mind if a customer was wearing a male chastity device as long as it caused no physical harm or discomfort,” said Aaron, a dancer at Stag PDX, Portland’s new male strip club. “If all parts of the device are safely tucked away between your legs while you receive the lap dance, there should be little to worry about. But if the device has parts that protrude — and could possibly harm an overzealous dancer while they grind up on you — you may want to be more cautious. It also never hurts to ask the dancers what they’re comfortable with.” Strippers! They’re just like us! You can ask them questions! They will answer them! They respond positively when you take their comfort into account! They also appreciate large tips! And good personal hygiene! And clients who aren’t completely shitfaced!

a guy back to my place. The guy was in his 40s, lean and muscular. The sex was great! He was very oral, unlike my vanilla husband. When we got this stud’s clothes off, I saw that his pubic area was completely shaved, basically from his navel down. I don’t know if I looked as shocked as I felt. While he was humping away — I have never had anyone with such stamina and power — he told me to feel his anus, and that area, too, was shaved. I didn’t want to ask him why he shaves, but I am wondering if this is common these days? Is there some “meaning” to it? And is anal-touching now customary? I am really out of it and thought I’d ask you.

[DAILY RUNDOWN]

CONFUSED OVER UNDER-GARMENTAREA REGION

While I love your signoff, COUGAR, sleeping with a lean, muscular guy in his 40s who likes to have his anus touched doesn’t earn a woman her cougar wings or whiskers or whatever. You’re going to have to fuck a few boys in their 20s if you want to be a cougar. In regards to your recent hookup, COUGAR, the removal of pubic hair has definitely become more common over the last 25 years. Studies have found that upward of 60 percent of women regularly remove most or all of their pubic hair; there aren’t studies about men removing their pubic hair, but many men do. Shaving or waxing doesn’t necessarily mean anything in particular, other than a preference for hairless junk. And the younger people are — chronologically or in spirit — the likelier they are to remove their pubes. And while I wouldn’t describe analtouching as customary, there are definitely more straight men around today who aren’t afraid of their own assholes.

“STRIPPERS! THEY’RE JUST LIKE US!”

I recently left my husband and moved from the suburbs to my own apartment in Philadelphia. It’s very liberating, and I have been starting to venture out for some great sex, something missing in my 25-year marriage. Two weeks ago, I decided to be adventurous and went to a clubby bar around the block and brought

A newsletter you’ll actually want to read.

I recently stopped reading your advice column due to its current focus on homosexuality. Just letting you know the heterosexuals are still alive and doing well. BORED READING ENDLESSLY EXPERIMENTAL DEVIANTS EXPLORING RECTUMS

Over the last year, BREEDER, I published 140 questions from readers who identified themselves as gay, lesbian, bi, trans or straight. Twenty-six of those questions were from gay men (18 percent), 16 were from bisexuals (12 percent), six were from trans people (4 percent), two were from lesbians (1 percent) and 90 were from straight people (65 percent). Almost all of the bisexuals whose letters I responded to were in opposite-sex, a.k.a. “straight,” relationships, and the same goes for half the letters from trans people. (Lots of trans people are straight-identified and in oppositesex, a.k.a. “straight,” relationships.) So nearly 80 percent of the questions I answered last year focused on straight people and/or straight sex. If a sex-advice column that’s about straight people and/or straight sex 65 to 80 percent of the time is too gay for you, BREEDER, then my “current focus” isn’t the problem — your homophobia is. I would say that I’m sorry to lose you as a reader, BREEDER, but I’m not.

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

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