August 24, 2016 - Pittsburgh City Paper

X PGHCITYPAPER XXX X PITTSBURGHCITYPAPER XX PGHCITYPAPER XX PGHCITYPAPER

WWW.PGHCITYPAPER.COM | 08.24/08.31.2016

2

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 08.24/08.31.2016

EVENTS 9.14 – 8pm SOUND SERIES: YO LA TENGO WITH SPECIAL GUEST LAMBCHOP Carnegie Music Hall (Oakland) Co-presented with WYEP. Tickets $20/$15 Members & students

9.16 – 8pm TQ LIVE! The Warhol theater Co-presented with Trans-Q Television, a project of Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for the Arts in Society. Produced by Scott Andrew and Suzie Silver.

Tickets $10/$8 Members & students

9.29 – 11am POP GENERATION: ANDY’S ANTIQUITIES For the generation that inspired Warhol, Pop Generation features educational tours exclusively for older adults, age 65 and over.

Email popgeneration@warhol.org or call Leah Morelli at 412.237.8389.

Tickets $10/FREE Members

9.30 – 8pm SOUND SERIES: AN EVENING WITH JOAN SHELLEY The Warhol theater This performance is co-presented with Calliope: The Pittsburgh Folk Music Society.

FREE parking in The Warhol lot Tickets $15/$12 Members & students

10.7 – 7pm SENSORY-FRIENDLY EVENT FOR ADULTS (21+) There is a 20 person limit for the event, and registration is required. To register please contact Leah Morelli at morellil@warhol.org or call 412.237.8389.

FREE

Due to popular demand, extended through September 11

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.

Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Fine Foundation, The Heinz Endowments, and Christopher Tsai and André Stockamp. Additional support was provided by the Quentin and Evelyn T. Cunningham, the Hollen Bolmgren, and the W. Paul Spencer Funds of The Pittsburgh Foundation.

NEWS

+

MUSIC

+

ARTS

+

EVENTS

+

TASTE

+

SCREEN

+

SPORTS

+

CLASSIFIEDS

3

4

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 08.24/08.31.2016

2016 wine festival 08.24/08.31.2016

[EDITORIAL]

VOLUME 26 + ISSUE 34

Editor CHARLIE DEITCH News Editor REBECCA ADDISON Arts & Entertainment Editor BILL O’DRISCOLL Music Editor MARGARET WELSH Associate Editor AL HOFF Multimedia Editor ASHLEY MURRAY Web Producer ALEX GORDON Staff Writers RYAN DETO, CELINE ROBERTS Interns STEPHEN CARUSO, MEGAN FAIR, TYLER DAGUE, WILLIAM LUDT, LUKE THOR TRAVIS

{COVER PHOTOS COURTESY OF JAY ZUKERKORN}

Walter Steiger’s “Unicorn Tayss” Roger Vivier’s “Virgule Houndstooth” Christian Louboutin’s “Printz”

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

August 26 - 28, 2016

[ADVERTISING] Aperlaï’s “Geisha Lines”

Tickets starting at $24.00. Purchase tickets in advance at 7Springs.com.

Director of Advertising JESSIE AUMAN-BROCK Senior Account Executives PAUL KLATZKIN, JEREMY WITHERELL Advertising Representatives ERICA MATAYA, DANA MCHENRY Classified Manager ANDREA JAMES National Advertising Representative VMG ADVERTISING 1.888.278.9866 OR 1.212.475.2529

Winde Rienstra’s “Bamboo Heel”

[COVER STORY]

“I went to gain appreciation for the design of a pesky element in my wardrobe.”

• Unlimited Wine Samples from 30 PA wineries • Variety of Crafts • Daily Seminars • Live Music & Entertainment

[MARKETING+PROMOTIONS] Marketing Director DEANNA KONESNI Marketing Design Coordinator LINDSEY THOMPSON

PAGE 21

2

Starting at $263 per person!

Please call 866.437.1300

You must be at least 21 years of age to attend this event. 800-452-2223 | 7Springs.com

{CP PHOTO BY LUKE THOR TRAVIS}

[ADMINISTRATION]

[NEWS]

“This program can help people by giving them a reason to wake up in the morning.”

PAGE 06

News 06 Views 10 Music 12 Arts 19 Events 29 Taste 33 Screen 37

Sports 39 Classifieds 41 Crossword 41 Free Will Astrology 44 Savage Love 45 The Last Word 46 NEWS

+

MUSIC

Circulation Director JIM LAVRINC Office Administrator RODNEY REGAN Administrative Assistant STEPHANIE DRISCOLL Interactive Media Manager CARLO LEO

[PUBLISHER] EAGLE MEDIA CORP. GENERAL POLICIES: Contents copyrighted 2016 by Eagle Media Corp. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced without written permission of the publisher.

The opinions expressed in Pittsburgh City Paper are those of the author and not necessarily of Eagle Media Corp. LETTER POLICY: Letters, faxes or e-mails must be signed and include town and daytime phone number for confirmation.

We may edit for length and clarity. DISTRIBUTION: Pittsburgh City Paper is published weekly by Eagle Media Corp. and is available free of charge at select distribution locations. One copy per reader; copies of past issues may be purchased for $3.00 each, payable in advance to Pittsburgh City Paper. FIRST CLASS MAIL SUBSCRIPTIONS: Available for $175 per year, $95 per half year.

No refunds.

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 650 Smithfield Street, Suite 2200 Pittsburgh, PA 15222 412.316.3342 FAX: 412.316.3388 E-MAIL info@pghcitypaper.com

www.pghcitypaper.com PGHCITYPAPER PITTSBURGHCITYPAPER +

ARTS

+

EVENTS

+

TASTE

+

SCREEN

+

SPORTS

+

CLASSIFIEDS

5

THIS WEEK

“WHEN I’M RUNNING, I FEEL FREE.”

ONLINE

www.pghcitypaper.com

Twelve teams faced off in the Little Italy Days bocce tournament in Bloomfield this weekend.

Read about it on page 39 or watch our video at www.pghcitypaper.com.

Drake donned a Pens jersey when he brought his Summer Sixteen Tour, with Future, to Pittsburgh’s Consol Energy Center.

Check out our photo slideshow at www.pghcitypaper.com.

On our podcast Five Minutes in Food History, Casbah’s wine and beverage director, Alyssa McGrath, tells us about the tradition of Italian Amari.

{CP PHOTO BY LUKE THOR TRAVIS}

Pumped to Run participants and mentors up before the sun

PUMPED TO RUN

On Soundcloud, or at www.pghcitypaper.com.

CITY PAPER

INTERACTIVE

Our featured Flowers photo from last week is by Instagrammer @jseeksjoy.

This week’s theme is Reflections. Tag your Instagram photos of the city reflected on different surfaces with #CPReaderArt, and we just may re-gram you.

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

T

HIS PAST December, on the day after Christmas, Rita Price was laid off from her job. It was a devastating blow for the 56-year-old, who says she has battled depression for most of her life. With nowhere to turn, Price soon found herself in the Bethlehem Haven women’s shelter near Downtown Pittsburgh.

“I’m prone to anorexia. I’ve struggled with [post-traumatic stress disorder],” says Price. “My stress has always been around me, and I don’t know how to handle a lot of issues at once and I get overloaded.”

But during her time at Bethlehem Haven, Price found a way to cope. Since May, she’s been involved in a morning running program for residents at local

homeless shelters.

“Running has helped. The shelter has taught me a lot. They have good programs for us to get emotionally healthy,” says Price. “By running, you can get outside of that building and rebuild your life with something good. It’s given me stressrelief. When I’m running, I feel free.”

New running program gets local homelessshelter residents active {BY REBECCA ADDISON} Created by the Pittsburgh Urban Magnet Project, a nonprofit aimed at the city’s younger demographic, the

program pairs experienced runners with shelter residents.

“This program can help people by giving them a reason to wake up in the morning and giving them a purpose,” says Jaime Filipek, program development manager. “I truly believe in the power of athletics, and that confidence you get translates.”

There are an estimated 1,400 individuals living in emergency shelters, transitional housing and other supportivehousing residences in Allegheny County.

Advocates say programs like Pumped to Run are key to ending the revolving door that finds many homeless individuals struggling to obtain and maintain permanent housing.

“It’s noticeable to me as someone CONTINUES ON PG. 08

6

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 08.24/08.31.2016

NEWS

+

MUSIC

+

ARTS

+

EVENTS

+

TASTE

+

SCREEN

+

SPORTS

+

CLASSIFIEDS

7

PUMPED TO RUN, CONTINUED FROM PG. 06

who works at a shelter and is part of this program,” says Sarah Dittoe, residential manager of Bethlehem Haven. “I see people every day who have a difficult situation and, for that reason, might not always be in the best spirits. But every time we get out there and run and walk together, when they come back, they feel good.”

AT 7 A.M. on a particularly muggy

August morning, a group of runners has just returned to the Bethlehem Haven shelter after completing the final run of the week. Stretching out their wellworked limbs as the sun rises in the sky, their chatter centers on mile-times and goals.

“I just did three miles,” one woman says with a beaming smile. “I was only going to do one.”

It’s a common occurrence, says Alyssa Chance, a mentor with the program.

“It’s great to see them hit those goals and try to go out for bigger things,” Chance says. “Maybe that will translate into the rest of their lives.”

Chance started running four years ago and says it changed her life. She says she got involved in the Pumped to Run program because she wanted others to have the same experience.

“If you have a bad day, and you go out for a run, it kind of gives you time to process. It’s something that doesn’t really require a lot besides the commitment,” says Chance.

“Maybe some things in their lives aren’t going well, and they feel overwhelmed. This is something they can be in control of when everything else is out of their control.”

One of her favorite parts of the program is the changes she’s seen in former Bethlehem Haven resident Price, who has suffered from asthma all her life.

“In school, I wasn’t able to do any sports — no running, no nothing like that,” says Price. “Everywhere I went, I had to carry an inhaler. My goal was, I want to be able to run and not have to use my inhaler, and be able to breathe and not have to suffer so much. Now when I’m running, I can breathe, and it just feels great. My lungs have gotten stronger. Now I can do five miles.”

Chance says another barrier she saw Price struggle with was a fear of running over bridges, but together they overcame it.

“This is a city of bridges, so you can’t really go anywhere without crossing bridges,” says Chance. “We kept building up to it, and [one morning] when we got to the bridge, I grabbed her hand, and we ran half of the bridge with me holding her hand. Not only did she make it over the bridge, but then of course, we had to come back over another. She just went over that second bridge like it was nothing.”

Next month, Price and Chance will be running in the Great Race together.

“Things like that are really special moments,” says Chance. “Things she was terrified of, now she’s asking to do. The act of running and enjoying company with one another, that’s really what it’s all about.”

J.R. White, a resident at the Pleasant Valley shelter in the North Side, is another participant in the program.

“It’s a good way to start the day off in the morning. It sets your pace for the rest of the day. I’ve definitely seen a difference in my personality and my demeanor,” says White. “It makes the day a lot easier. Especially in the situation we’re in at the shelter, it makes the days shorter. Believe it or not, getting up a little earlier makes the days shorter and makes them less stressful.”

Before he became a resident at Pleasant Valley, White volunteered at the organization’s food pantry. He says he decided to stay at the shelter after moving out of his mother’s home.

“I didn’t want to impose on my mom with my problems,” says White, who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. “The exercise helps my cycling [the number of bipolar episodes] be less rapid.”

Next month, he’ll be joining Price and Chance in the Great Race.

“If worse comes to wors[t], I’ll end up walking,” the 50-year-old says with a laugh. “It keeps me young.”

Pittsburgh’s running program was inspired by Back on My Feet, a running program for the homeless that started in Philadelphia. The philosophy is that building confidence, strength and selfesteem are key to helping homeless individuals secure employment and permanent housing.

“Maybe they set a small goal like being able to run a mile or walk for 30 minutes,” says Dittoe, of Bethlehem

“EVERY TIME WE GET OUT THERE AND RUN AND WALK TOGETHER, WHEN THEY COME BACK, THEY FEEL GOOD.”

8

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 08.24/08.31.2016

Haven. “But almost everybody ends up changing their goals and going farther and faster and more than they initially thought they would each time they come out. [It’s] really cool because it makes you feel like you’ve accomplished something.

Even if you go a quarter of a mile farther, or a little faster than the day before, you see an improvement.”

Dittoe points to Price as an example of the program’s success. Since participating in the program she’s moved into permanent housing.

“She was the first sort of graduate of the program, and she comes back,” Dittoe says. “She’s pretty important in recruiting people and inspiring people. When she was living at the shelter, she would engage people all the time, and now that she’s not there, she talks to the people who come and tries to get them to come back [to the running group]. She got a lot out of it and wants other people to as well.”

Participants are provided with all of the necessary athletic clothing and shoes from donations Pumped to Run has received. But in addition to more running gear, the program’s organizers are always looking for more mentors — run-

ners like Jessey Neal, who got involved in the program after learning more about Pittsburgh’s homeless population.

“I never knew how much that population of people is marginalized,” says Neal. “Working in Downtown, you really become numb to seeing that all day every day. I didn’t really know how I could make a difference. Who am I? How can I change something?”

But since joining the program and spending his mornings running with residents from local shelters, Neal says he can see the impact the program has had.

“These people, there are obviously different reasons why they’re there — whether it’s mental health, or them just not having the same support system in terms of family that they can fall back on in times of financial duress,” says Neal. “But they’re people just like you and I, and they have the same feelings and needs and wants and desires as the rest of us. Week after week, they open up a little more and talk about their progress, and how running is helping them focus more on things that are important to them. And that’s just a really awesome feeling.”

RN U T TA L L @ P G HC I T Y PA P E R. C OM

JENSORENSEN

CONSUMER AFFAIRS Affordable-housing advocates to boycott Pittsburgh’s Whole Foods {BY RYAN DETO} WHEN MORE than 200 evictions were announced at Penn Plaza last summer, rumors quickly circulated about what the building’s owners, LG Realty, had in store for the site. Many believed a big-box store, like Costco or Walmart, would take the place of the 312-unit below-marketrate complex, but it remained a mystery.

In March, City Paper reported LG had a “firm agreement with an anchor tenant” prior to announcing the evictions.

And now, according to an announcement last month, it appears that anchor tenant is Whole Foods Market.

In response, a small group of advocates have decided to boycott the grocery store, citing what they see as a disregard for Pittsburgh’s affordablehousing struggles.

“Do we need another Whole Foods more than the Penn Plaza residents needed the relationships and accessibility of being in centrally located affordable housing?,” says Joy KMT, who helped start the boycott effort.

But will the Whole Foods boycott make a difference?

So far, about 300 people have signed up for the boycott on Facebook, and KMT says the group may hold demonstrations. KMT says the group doesn’t have the capacity to “actively recruit” new members, but she welcomes more to join the Facebook group.

“I think that we have to start looking at communities as more than an assortment of buildings and land to be developed,” says KMT. “If we begin with different questions, then we will end with different answers.”

{CP PHOTO BY RYAN DETO}

Whole Foods Market on Centre Avenue in East Liberty

from a boycotted merchant,” Delaney wrote in an email to CP. “In the [Whole Foods case], the issue will be whether the dispute fueling the boycott of Whole Foods will be important enough to customers to create economic damage.”

CP talked to six shoppers at the current East Liberty Whole Foods on Centre Avenue (the grocer has indicated it will not keep both locations), and only half were aware of plans for a new store.

Most cited more parking as a potential benefit of the new store. All said they would shop at the new location when complete, except for one respondent who said she preferred the current location because it was more “Shadyside-y.” Only one of the six was familiar with the Penn Plaza affordable-housing saga. When

Whole Foods Market spokesperson Annie Cull is aware of the boycott and wrote in an email that Whole Foods “recognizes that this effort is a part of the overall conversation happening about the ongoing development of the neighborhood.”

“The East Liberty community has been going through a major revitalization over the last several years, and Whole Foods Market is a very small part of it,” she wrote.

John Delaney, a University of Pittsburgh businessadministration professor and labor expert, says while some boycotts have been more effective than others, the strategy overall has tended to have only “moderate” effectiveness.

“The success of a boycott often depends on the salience of the issue in dispute to the people who might buy

WILL THE WHOLE FOODS BOYCOTT MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

asked about potential problems with the new location, he said “You know what happened over there was bad,” before indicating that he would still shop at the new store.

But should a boycott be directed toward Whole Foods, the property’s tenant, or LG, the owners?

KMT says yes, considering Whole Foods’ stated mission to promote community involvement. Whole Foods’ website states, “Caring for the communities in which we reside is hugely important to our organization.”

“I think that it would be important for Whole Foods to advocate for and protect vulnerable populations in the communities which they serve,” says KMT. “Whole Foods is actively seeking to profit from the displacement of families, and that is against the values that they have set forth to guide their company.”

Whole Foods is not new to the neighborhood — the Centre Avenue location has been in East Liberty since 2002. But even though the store has been part of the area for more than a decade, KMT says its decision to express interest in and occupy the site that was the last unsubsidized, below-market-rate apartment complex in the neighborhood should carry weight.

“Developments like this can’t work without the cooperation of many, from governmental agencies to private developers to corporations,” says KMT. “As an anchor store in East Liberty, the choices that Whole Foods makes absolutely do matter.”

Cull, of Whole Foods, said that the company would not be leading a communitycollaboration effort, but directed CP to LG’s larger plans for the former Penn Plaza site. Jonathan Kamin, the attorney representing LG, didn’t respond to request for comment on the developer’s plans.

Construction of the new East Liberty Whole Foods is slated for the first quarter of 2017.

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

CHAI MITZVAH =

ADULT JEWISH STUDY + SPIRITUALITY + SOCIAL ACTION • Nine once-a-month study sessions (September to May) • Four city-wide Gatherings

• Personal exploration • Study Cohorts within seven participating synagogues

5887 FORBES AVENUE Pgh, PA 15217 • 412-421-2909

Funding provided by

pittsburgh.colormemine.com

B’nai Abraham Butler | B’nai Israel White Oak | Temple Emanuel Israel Greensburg Temple Sinai | Rodef Shalom | Temple David | Temple Emanuel of the South Hills

301 SOUTH HILLS VILLAGE Pgh, PA 15241 • 412-854-1074 southhills.colormemine.com

For more information email Chaimitzvahpgh@yahoo Chaimitzvahpgh@yahoo.com com or call 412-372-1206 NEWS

+

MUSIC

+

ARTS

+

EVENTS

+

TASTE

+

SCREEN

+

SPORTS

+

CLASSIFIEDS

9

[PITTSBURGH LEFT]

NON-DAILY SMOKERS NEEDED

REFRESHER COURSE

Do you smoke cigarettes but only on some days?

We were too quick to let the Toomey/Yorktown issue pass into thin air like so many Pell Grant dollars {BY CHARLIE DEITCH}

You may be eligible to participate in a research study for non-daily smokers.

Must be at least 18 years old. Earn at least $300 upon completion.

For more information and to see if you’re eligible, call the Smoking Research Group at the University of Pittsburgh at

(412) 383-2059 or text NONDAILY to (412) 999-2758 *Studies for non-daily smokers who DO want to quit and DO NOT want to quit.

www.smokingresearchgroup.com

6921 Fifth Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15208

(412) 441-6666

www.compassselfstorage.com

STUDENT DISCOUNT

Rates Available* *Certain Restrictions Apply.

10

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 08.24/08.31.2016

THE THING ABOUT an election cycle is that

rhetoric, mud and accusations get thrown around so much that it’s hard to properly digest and react to everything. Because of that, unimportant and sensational items can get relatively big play compared to their actual news value, and smaller, more important topics can get lost in the shuffle and dismissed as minor.

That happened in June in the U.S. Senate race between GOP incumbent Pat Toomey and his Democratic challenger Katie McGinty. Huffington Post found a connection between Toomey and the conservative, forprofit Yorktown University. Toomey was on the board, a financial investor and appeared in marketing materials for the conservative school. But the school was no Harvard; in fact, it wasn’t even a Faber (ask Animal House fans). It’s no longer in operation, but before it lost its accreditation, it offered lessons like the lecture that warned of the dangers of women’s studies programs at other colleges: “Your daughter will change her appearance, and may even change her sexual orientation.”

I admit, this story did hit hard for a few days in late June, mainly because of lawsuits that surfaced against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s ridiculous education venture known as Trump University. Once that happened, any elected official tied to a forprofit — and there are a lot of them — was criticized for his or her involvement. Toomey certainly was, and his response was to call his involvement “minimal.”

It’s hard for me to buy that, though.

Toomey is a smart dude; he’s a business man; he’s a financial guy. I find it hard to believe he invested and was completely hands-off. His campaign’s statement at the time makes it seem like he didn’t know how the school operated — by targeting potential students on one criterion: the ability to get federal financial aid or other sure-fire subsidies, like the G.I. Bill.

Let me be clear — Yorktown wasn’t the only school in the country that recruited like this. Many of them do, including Pittsburgh-based Education Management Corp. I’ve covered this sector since 2008 when public, for-profit schools had stock prices that soared above $35-40 a share and attracted the big investment firms like Goldman Sachs. A lot of these schools peddled an overpriced education that of-

ten didn’t result in a job that paid enough to repay the massive student-loan debt students had accrued. These schools have high dropout rates, but they have your money already.

The federal government has stepped in and placed tighter restrictions on these institutions, but there are still loopholes. For example, the schools have to meet certain criteria to get federal student-aid dollars.

But did you know that G.I. Bill dollars don’t count as financial aid? The for-profits know this, and that’s why they count on veterans to help them make their money. These private schools educate only about 8 percent of this country’s student population, according to a Los Angeles Times analysis released last fall, but they collect more than 30 percent of all G.I. Bill money.

And that’s why I think we were too quick to let the Toomey/Yorktown issue pass into thin air like so many misspent Pell Grant dollars. Schools like the one Toomey invested in are bad for Americans who are just looking to make a better life for themselves by getting an education. The G.I. Bill is supposed to be there to help those who served this country get an education; it’s not a tool for education corporations to enrich themselves while selling degrees that, for most students, aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.

It’s true that Toomey hooked up with Yorktown before he was elected senator, but for-profit education has to be something he believes in on some level, or why else would he get involved with it in the first place? Even now as a senator, he is cosponsor and supporter of Senate Bill 559, which would roll back the safeguards the federal government put in place to keep the for-profit education industry in check.

So if he’s involved in a for-profit school, and if he supports legislation to loosen the controls on this industry, I have a hard time believing that Pat Toomey will ever come to the right side of this issue — the side that protects low-income students and veterans.

On his campaign website, Toomey describes how he fights for veterans saying they “deserve the best care and nothing less.” Apparently that doesn’t apply to education, and that’s not something that should be easily forgotten especially as the November election nears.

“SCHOOLS LIKE THE ONE TOOMEY INVESTED IN ARE BAD FOR AMERICANS.”

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

Weird Pittsburgh

SEND YOUR LOCAL WEIRD NEWS TO INFO@PGHCITYPAPER.COM

{BY NICK KEPPLER}

+

A 22-year-old staffer for U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster, a Republican from Pennsylvania’s gerrymandered Ninth District that includes parts of Fayette and Westmoreland counties, says that Shuster’s political opponent accosted her at a campaign booth at the Fayette County Fair, grabbing her “tightly by the wrist” while pressing her for information about Shuster’s campaign. Real-estate investor Art Halvorson is running against Shuster as a Democrat, even though he’s a staunch conservative. Halvorson challenged the congressman in Republican primaries in 2014 and 2016 and twice lost, but this year he had a backup plan: He had voters registered as Democrats write in his name. With no serious candidate and little Democratic activity in the solidly Republican district, Halvorson got on the ballot to challenge Shuster in the general election (though he’s had no coordination with the local or national Democratic Party). In a report filed with the private firm that provided security for the fair, obtained by the Herald-Standard of Uniontown, Shuster staffer Meghan Boocks claims Halvorson walked up and literally squeezed her for the name of Shuster’s campaign manager. “Then, he said I could personally tell my boss that he would destroy him in the election and take his job,” she added. Halvorson told the newspaper, “These are absolutely false statements and I vehemently deny them,” though he said he did approach Boocks “to figure out who Shuster’s campaign manager was,” information he didn’t know even though he had been running against Shuster for months.

about the work being done by the Allegheny County Controller’s Office. The website of the office, which oversees the county’s day-to-day fiscal operations, was hacked by someone who goes by Ek Tha Tiger (which is also the name of a 2012 Indian action movie). Last week, visitors to the site were greeted by a bragging message from Ek Tha Tiger and — even more dastardly — the sound of a song by early-’00s rock band Linkin Park. Controller Chelsa Wagner told WTAE that this is not the first time the website has been vandalized, even though it contains no sensitive information, only freely published info and reports.

macies at gunpoint while both wore masks of Kylo Ren, the villain of The Force Awakens. In March, Stephan Edward Corrick and Dana Lee Shipley allegedly held up Palmer’s Drug Store in West Deer, taking painkillers and $2,000 in cash, and, in April, robbed the Keystone Pharmacy in New Alexandria, police told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Their memorable disguises gave police a lead: Officers reviewed surveillance footage from a Target near the West Deer pharmacy and spotted two middle-aged men buying the $9.99 masks the day before the crime. The two apparently intended to purchase items to repurpose shortly before their alleged crimes; police say en route to the heist in New Alexandria, they bought sexy handcuffs at a Murrysville adult store, removing the pink fuzzy lining before using them to restrain drugstore employees.

+

+

State police say a Southampton Township resident opened his camper and found a nude stranger sleeping. Public Opinion, a Canonsburg newspaper, reports that, once roused, 30-year-old James Stine allegedly bolted and ran down a street, still buck-naked, and was charged with lewd conduct.

Somewhere, there is a computer mastermind who doesn’t want you to know

MUSIC

Photo Credit: Animal Friends

Leiland is a four-year-old Treeing Walker Coonhound mix with a handsome brown coat.

He has been working hard to learn positive reinforcement and would be a great addition to a family that can give him an environment where he can continue to learn and grow.

As he continues to gain trust in people and accept love and affection, Leiland’s playful and sweet personality is really beginning to show! Since he is looking for a calm home, Leiland will need to join a family without any other dogs and children who are at least 14 years old. If you are looking for a bond that will last, get to know Leiland today!

Call Animal Friends today!

412-847-7000

Police say they have arrested the “Star Wars bandits” who robbed two phar-

+

WEEK

Leiland

Pittsburgh Public Schools paid the Perkins Consulting Group of Connecticut $91,690 to find its next superintendent. After the job was offered to Anthony Hamlet, a school administrator from Florida, the Palm Beach Record found that Hamlet may have fibbed a bit on his résumé, embellishing improvements in graduation and suspension rates and state ratings of schools he oversaw in Palm Beach County. This led to questions about why the Perkins Consulting Group did not uncover the same discrepancies and what exactly it did with the taxpayer money it received. Invoices published by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review showed that Perkins listed broad categories of services, with no receipts or itemizations. Among the charges were $15,000 worth of “data collection,” $3,980 in “application processing and analysis” and $1,990 for “reference checks,” but none of those apparently included a simple check of Hamlet’s claims against readily available public records. Perkins also spent $11,940 on a retreat for the school board that somehow helped in the superintendent issue. Board President Regina Holley told the Trib, “My concern was really not going over the $100,000 limit” the board allotted for the search. (Even after the discrepancies were discovered, Hamlet got to keep the $210,000-a-year job.)

NEWS

PET of the

WAYNOVISION

+

+

presents

www.dayauto.com +

ARTS

+

EVENTS

+

TASTE

+

SCREEN

+

SPORTS

+

CLASSIFIEDS

11

LOCAL

“I HAD IN MY MIND EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED WHEN I GOT TO THE STUDIO.”

BEAT

{BY MEG FAIR}

City Grows in Lawrenceville is a sweetsmelling garden shop overflowing with plants, seeds and local art. Everyday customers may have no idea, but after regular store hours, the space and its basement are transformed into an intimate DIY venue.

This weekend, the first ever FEST FEST FEST will take over the shop. The music festival features two dozen bands, a zine table and a vegan-friendly food stand, in an all-ages, alcohol-free space in which to enjoy the tunes.

It seems as if best friends and business partners Indigo Baloch and Olivia Ciotoli have endless ambition to better their community. Although both event organizers are incredibly busy with the establishment of their forthcoming cat café, The Black Cat Café (not to mention jobs and other responsibilities), Baloch and Ciotoli didn’t think twice about adding FEST FEST FEST to their to-do lists.

“FEST FEST FEST is our response to all of the punk festivals that seem to exclude female and nonbinary artists,” Baloch says. “There are so many incredible artists that deserve to be on that stage, but aren’t even contacted in the first place due to gender bias.”

“We definitely aimed to have the lineup be a bit more diverse, since we’re very tired of the boys’ club,” says Ciotoli.

The fest features haunting songstress Serpentine, the infectious and honest songwriting of Mildrid, stunning vocalist •f i g•, and the catchy alt-country bliss of the Otis Wolves, among many others. The lineup offers everything from hip hop and metalcore to acoustic and bluegrass music, and the performers are more consciously gender-diverse than most mainstream festival bills.

Baloch points to experiences at Warped Tour and Skate and Surf, where the performers are almost exclusively men, which helped lead the pair to focus on an inclusive lineup as a linchpin of FEST FEST FEST. In addition to symbolically supporting gender equity in music, the festival’s proceeds will benefit the Animal Rescue League.

“Animal Rescue League has been incredibly supportive with our cat-café endeavor,” says Ciotoli. “We wanted to give back to them.”

INFO@PGHCITYPAPER.COM

FEST FEST FEST 2-10 p.m. Fri., Aug. 26, and Sat., Aug. 27. City Grows, 5208 Butler St., Lawerenceville. $10 each day, $15 for two-day passes. Free entry for children. citygrowsfest.brownpapertickets.com

12

•f i g• performs at City Grows {PHOTO COURTESY OF EMMA VESCIO}

GROWING INCLUSIVITY

{PHOTO COURTESY OF CO5 MEDIA}

Waiting for the day: Brian Wilson

MADE FOR THESE TIMES {BY BILL KOPP}

W

HEN BRIAN WILSON recorded the Beach Boys album Pet Sounds in 1965-66, he didn’t simply raise the bar for nuance, quality and care put into the making of a pop-music album. He set a new standard of quality that would inform the work of countless artists who would come after him. The former Beach Boys songwriter and leader is currently celebrating the 50th anniversary of the release of Pet Sounds with a world tour. That tour includes a date at Pittsburgh’s Benedum Center on Aug. 25.

When Wilson made the decision to move beyond the subject matter of much of his previous work for the Beach Boys — songs that glorified sunny California, girls on the beach, muscle cars and surfing — he realized that he could do with some help.

Wilson’s more ambitious musical arrangements called for similarly adult lyrics.

As Domenic Priore (author of two books on

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 08.24/08.31.2016

the Beach Boys, as well as related album liner-note essays) tells CP by phone, Brian Wilson had been deeply impressed by the music and lyrics on The Byrds’ Mr. Tambourine Man album and The Beatles’ Rubber Soul. “For Pet Sounds, Brian knew he had to

BRIAN WILSON’S PET SOUNDS 50TH-ANNIVERSARY WORLD TOUR 7 p.m. Thu., Aug. 25. Benedum Center, 237 Seventh St., Downtown. Sold out.

412-456-6666 or www.trustarts.org

take his lyrics into another area than they had been before,” Priore says. For a collaborator, Wilson went in what must have seemed to those around him a most curious direction, choosing a 26-year-old advertisingjingle-writer named Tony Asher.

The way Wilson recounts the tale — no doubt answering a question he’s fielded hundreds of times —it was all very simple.

“I met [Asher] one time at a party, and he told me if I ever needed someone to write lyrics, he could do that,” he says in a separate phone interview. “So he came over and we wrote Pet Sounds.” Priore adds, “Asher worked for a very hip advertising company called Carson/Roberts. Something was going on in New York in advertising during the ’60s, but California was like the Wild West and had crazy, progressive ideas.”

Wilson’s collaboration brought out the best in him and Asher, resulting in classics like “God Only Knows” (often cited as Paul McCartney’s favorite song), “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” and the heartbreaking “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times.”

With the Beach Boys out on tour without him (session guitarist Glen Campbell replaced him on several dates), Wilson

NEW MOON

hunkered down for the better part of a year in L.A.’s top studios to make Pet Sounds.

On being the subject of the 2015 biopic Love and Mercy, Wilson readily offers, “I liked it when Paul Dano portrayed me as a record producer in my early 20s.â€? Wilson is justiďŹ ably proud of the work he did in the mid-1960s; his command of the studio — essentially treating it as an instrument in and of itself — remains a marvel. Long circulated among hardcore collectors (and eventually spotlighted on various ofďŹ cial expandedversion reissues), Pet Sounds session tapes show a man completely in control.

{BY MARGARET WELSH}

{PHOTO COURTESY OF RYAN MICHAEL WHITE}

Moon Baby

Working with Los Angeles’ top session men and women (later dubbed “The Wrecking Crew,� themselves the subject of a 2015 documentary of that name), Wilson aimed for — and got — the performances he heard in his head. “I had in my mind exactly what I wanted when I got to the studio,� he recalls. “I told the musicians what to play.�

Pet Sounds would spawn three hit singles, including a double-A-side and the album’s sole cover tune, “Sloop John B.� But live onstage, the Beach Boys weren’t really in a position to recreate Pet Sounds’ lush, deeply textured studio sonics. Priore insists that “in 1966, had anybody taken rock seriously enough, you could have put all of those same instruments up on stage at the Hollywood Bowl the way you would have at a Tchaikovsky spectacular. The problem was, nobody took rock ’n’ roll seriously enough back when Pet Sounds came out.�

Times have changed in the ensuing 50 years. With a large group that features guest musicians Al Jardine and Blondie Chaplin — both former Beach Boys themselves — Wilson leads a production that faithfully recreates Pet Sounds start to ďŹ nish. And Wilson says that this tour will mark the ďŹ nal performances of the landmark 1966 album.

So what’s next for Brian Wilson? “We might record an album,� he says. “We don’t know what kind of music, but we might try to write some songs.� Whatever he chooses to do, Wilson can proceed safe in the knowledge that he has already created one of the most important and enduring albums in all of popular music.

The latest release from local performer Moon Baby (alter-ego of Sam Perry) feels like an emotional exorcism. Last October, Perry’s roommate was tragically killed in a bike accident. Not long after, “I went on vacation with like 15 of my queer friends ‌ and during that was kind of able to vomit out everything I was going through.â€? The resulting record, Hollywood Killed Tara Reid, blends warmly hypnotic electro-pop beats with riveting vocals and, at times, darkly funny lyrics.

+

What does your child buy at convenience stores?

SO MAKING THIS RECORD HAS BEEN A CATHARTIC EXPERIENCE? Yes ‌ the range of emotion and expressiveness toward each emotion feels very much like that vacation trip — of just getting it all out at one time.

THE RECORD HAS SURPRISINGLY FUNNY MOMENTS. HOW DOES HUMOR FACTOR IN FOR YOU? I started out in performance art as a drag queen ‌ there’s so much play on identity in the drag world that is humorous, so comedy will kind of always be part of what I do. ‌ In this, I felt E R O a little bit more free to READ MNE LI ON just be crazy, I guess. www.

The RAND Corporation, in Pittsburgh, is conducting a research study to learn about what children, ages 11–17, purchase at convenience stores. Participation requires one 20 minute phone/internet survey and one 90 minute visit to the RAND study center.

at paper pghcitym .co

INFO@ PGHC ITY PAP ER.CO M

NEWS

*** NEW IN SOUTH SIDE FLATS *** '('* $ ARSON T$ b *'(#*)'#+ )./ g 8 g $ b

MUSIC

YOU’VE BEEN WORKING WITH [PRODUCER] WISE BLOOD FOR AWHILE. WHAT DOES HE BRING TO THE TABLE? We have a really aggressive relationship in terms of how we create. Chris [Laufman] is really genius in his own right ‌ but he’s really perceptive toward how I write. ...

His girlfriend calls us the Van Gogh and Gauguin of Pittsburgh music. ‌We fight, but what we fight about is really important to both of us.

Children who complete the study will be compensated for their time and effort with $50 in gift certiďŹ cates. Parking and travel compensation is provided.

If you are interested and want to learn more about the study, please call 412-545-3005, e-mail c-storestudy@rand.org or visit us at www.rand.org/storestudy.

MWELSH@PGHCITYPAPER.COM

MOON BABY ALBUM RELEASE 8 p.m.

Fri., Aug. 26. Ace Hotel, 120 S. Whitfield St., East Liberty. $10 412-361-3300 or www.dontevencome.com +

ARTS

+

EVENTS

+

TASTE

+

SCREEN

+

SPORTS

+

C O R P O R AT I O N

CLASSIFIEDS

13

GOLD TONES {BY BRIAN CONWAY} MARIAGE BLANC and Delicious Pastries

have been fixtures of the local indiemusic scene for nine years; Sleep Experiments and Host Skull, for five.

Beginning this week, all four bands will join together under the umbrella of a new musical collective, Golden Magnet.

“The great thing about putting records out in 2016 is no one’s making money anyway,” says Jesse Ley, drummer and founding member of Delicious Pastries, laughing. “Right now, the objective is to join together and pool our collective resources and challenge one another to continue to put out highquality art.”

The collective began as a conversation between ambient-dream-pop trio Sleep Experiments, indie-rock quartet Mariage Blanc and a mysterious third band that first presented the idea and has since backed out.

A common thread between the Golden Magnet bands is not immediately apparent. Matt Ceraso, guitarist and songwriter for Mariage Blanc, calls it “off-kilter indie rock and pop.” David Bernabo, onehalf of Host Skull, praises the “harmonic complexity” of each band. “No one is just doing power chords,” he says.

For now, the collective’s members new partnership becomes official with the Fri., Aug. 26 release of a new single from

{PHOTO COURTESY OF TRAVIS MITZEL}

Delicious Pastries: Top, from left: Stephen Gallo, Jesse Ley, Burr Settles; bottom, from left: Jonathan Chamberlain, Dan Styslinger, Vincent Poprocky

Delicious Pastries, “Pygmalion Cantations.” It’s a bouncy, tambourine- and synth-filled turn of psych pop, which Ley adds was commissioned by a private filmmaker for inclusion in a project next year.

Ceraso says no one’s quite sure yet what Golden Magnet will evolve into, but he wants it to remain a “flexible

“THIS IS AN INTENTIONAL WAY TO RECREATE THAT COMMUNITY.”

entity.” He says there has been talk between members of physical releases, one-off collaborations, and even a musical showcase in Oakland early

TO HEAR THE NEW DELICIOUS PASTRIES SONG ONCE IT’S RELEASED, visit deliciouspastries.bandcamp.com or goldenmagnet.bandcamp.com

next year, in an attempt to incorporate university students into the local music scene.

“I know when I went to Pitt, I didn’t even know there was a music scene in Pittsburgh,” says Ceraso.

He and Bernabo fondly recall vibrant periods of the Pittsburgh indie scene.

Ceraso waxes nostalgic for the late 2000s, when bands like his, The Harlan Twins and Meeting of Important People could pack a venue like Brillobox on a Tuesday night. Bernabo speaks fondly of an earlier time, in 2002, when Roboto II was still open.

“I think that’s probably true for everyone in the collective,” says Bernabo.

“Everyone felt at some time in Pittsburgh there was a scene they felt they belonged in. And just like everything, it dissipates.

This is an intentional way to recreate that community.”

Ley and Ceraso both cite Athens, Ga.’s famed Elephant 6 Collective as an obvious inspiration. Jeff Baron, longtime member of E6 bands The Ladybug Transistor and The Essex Green, writes via email that being part of that collective was “extremely inspiring and quite an impelling force.”

“It was a badge of honor that we took seriously,” writes Baron, who now lives in Vermont. “No one wanted to produce something subpar that might tarnish the collective as a whole, let alone their individual group.”

It’s exactly what Ley hopes Delicious Pastries gains from Golden Magnet. “To be associated with bands of that caliber — we need to up our game and really bring it.”

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

Brooktree Health Services

Friendship Psychological Services

A Holistic Approach to Drug & Alcohol Treatment

for children and adolescents to age 21 and their families.

Specific treatment programs offered

by Brooktree Health Services include: • Partial Hospitalization Program • Intensive Outpatient • Outpatient Services • Greater Pennsylvania Sober Living Conveniently located in Wexford

Brooktree Health Services 6500 Brooktree Road Wexford, PA 15090 724-935-0460

Recovery is a journey, not a destination.

14

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 08.24/08.31.2016

Watson’s expertise includes licensed psychiatrists, psychologists and therapists who meet the needs of children with behavioral and emotional challenges.

We offer: • Diagnostic Assessments • Psychiatric Evaluations • Trauma Informed Care • Family Support and Counseling • Grief Therapy • Outpatient Psychotherapy • Parenting Skills and Behavior Management • Medication Management

“I can We can help turn “I can’t” into “I can.” theWatsonInstitute.org | 412-749-6450 255 S. Negley Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15206

Emotional and Behavioral Challenges • Developmental Delays • Autism Spectrum Disorder

CRITICS’ PICKS

Front Porch Theatricals {PHOTO COURTESY OF NATHAN WEST}

Bruce E. G. Smith, Leon S. Zionts & Nancy D. Zionts, Producers

Aug 26, 27 & Sept 1-3 | 8PM Aug 28 & Sept 4 | 2PM New Hazlett Theater 6 Allegheny Square East Pittsburgh, PA 15212

Tarana

Tickets: www.frontporchpgh.com or frontporch.showclix.com or 1-888-71-TICKETS Ticket prices: $30 online, $35 at door, $24 Students & Groups [NU METAL] + THU., AUG. 25 The summer of nu metal continues at First Niagara Pavilion with Korn and Rob Zombie.

Show up on time for opener In This Moment’s witchy, aggro metal. If your only familiarity with Korn is “Freak on a Leash,” don’t forget that Jonathan Davis and Co. have put out nearly a dozen albums since Follow the Leader, one of which features a track in collaboration with Skrillex. If you’re curious what Rob Zombie has been up to, he put out a record this summer called The Electric Warlock Acid Witch Satanic Orgy Celebration Dispenser, so business ess as usual. Meg Fair 7 p.m. 65 5 Pennsylvania 18, Burgettstown. town.

All ages. $25-69.50.

724-947-7400 -7400 or livenation.com on.com

and talent of percussionist, pop queen and all-around powerhouse Sheila E. Her vocal prowess shimmers and shines on the hit “The Glamorous Life,” and she’s lent her skills to artists like Beyoncé, Diana Ross, Gloria Estefan and, most famously, Prince, to whom her current show is dedicated.

Much of the sheer genius of the Purple Rain era is thanks to Sheila E.’s visionary bandleading and composition. Tonight, she fills the Byham Theater with electrifying funk: Your seat may not get much use, as any sane and joy-loving human will be unable to resist resi dancing. MF 8 p.m.

101 Sixth St., Downtown.

D $40.75-125.75. $40.75-125.7 All ages.

412-456-6666 or 412-456-6 www.trustarts.org www.trus

kids 12 and under

free

[MATH METAL] + SAT., AUG. 27

[EXPERIMENTAL] RIMENTAL] + FRI., AUG. 26 Does the e thought of genre-bending e-bending electronic ic tunes get you hyped? ed? Do you dream off expertly connected ed digital and analog electronics that work in tandem to create sounds ounds you’ve Sheila E. never experienced? perienced? If you answered wered yes to the above Qs, s heads up! p!

Experimental act Tarana is performing a special gig at City of Asylum.

Its mixture of mediums, genres and gear makes for a fascinating and unreplicatable sound. The duo is comprised of Rick Parker, trombonist and synth wizard, and Ravish Momin, an innovative drummer and composer with an ear for blending percussion with electronic gear.

Tarana’s music flows with an artful connection despite mixing everything from ambient, flowing loops to catchy Bollywood melodies and beats. Highly recommended viewing. MF 6 p.m. 324 Sampsonia Way, North Side. Free. All ages. 412-323-0278 or www.cityofasylum.org

[FUNK] + SAT., AUG. 27 Few performers can boast the energy, charisma

NEWS

+

It’s hard har to imagine imagin a more fitting name the Sonic than th Unrest Tour.

Between the Betwee djent, expert dje polyrhythms that musicwould give m students theory studen and loudnightmares an riffage, att attendees arse riffage without earplugs will leave the gig a puddle of math-rock destruction.

Openers Toothgrinder blend the low end with cleaner vocals and slower pace, whereas SikTh brings a more nu-metal-meets-core sound. CHON offers twinkly, calculus-level prog-rock riffage to the tour, focusing less energy on being heavy and more on writing lightning-fast tapping parts and inhuman guitar licks. Headlining the tour is Periphery, which found a way to blend the geeky math and groove into something slightly more accessible to the masses. Is prog/math/djent metal nerdy as hell? Yeah, but it rips, so who cares! MF 8 p.m. 400 Lincoln Ave., Millvale. $20-22. All ages. 412-821-4447 or www.mrsmalls.com

MUSIC

+

ARTS

+

EVENTS

pittsburgh’s bridge to

ireland 2 6 t h a n n u a l c e lt i c c e l e b r at i o n

september 9-10-11, 2016 featuring live music by Skerryvore, Screaming Orphans, Socks in the Frying Pan, Scythian, The Step Crew, Makem and Spain, Ruaile Buaile, and more acts to be announced!

Riverplex 1000 Sandcastle Drive, West Homestead, PA 15120

PghIrishFest.org A collaborative non-profit for preservation & promotion of all things Irish.

+

TASTE

+

SCREEN

+

SPORTS

+

CLASSIFIEDS

15

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

ROCK/POP THU 25

F r i d ay, A u g u s t 2 6

THE GATHERING FIELD With special guest

Rachel B

all shows Start at 7:30 PM every friday. rain or shine!

stationsquare.com

facebook.com/stationsquare

BENEDUM CENTER. Brian Wilson presents Pet Sounds. w/ special guests Al Jardine & Blondie Chaplin. Downtown.

412-456-6666.

CLUB CAFE. The Lonely Heartstring Band w/ Ferdinand The Bull. South Side.

412-431-4950.

DOWNEY’S HOUSE. Aaron from The Lava Game. Robinson.

412-489-5631.

FIRST NIAGARA PAVILION. Korn w/ Rob Zombie.

Burgettstown. 724-947-7400.

MOUNT LEBANON PUBLIC LIBRARY. Mt. Lebanon High School String Quartet.

Mt. Lebanon. 412-531-1912.

SMILING MOOSE. North

By North Lone Wolf Club, My Friday Slacks w/ The Tilt Room.

South Side. 412-431-4668.

STEEL CITY STEAKHOUSE. The Watts Brothers Band.

Monroeville. 412-646-4695.

SAT 27 BALTIMORE HOUSE. Hellin Back. Pleasant Hills.

412-653-3800.

BYHAM THEATER. Sheila E. Downtown. 412-456-6666.

CITY GROWS. City Grows Fest. Benefits Animal Rescue League. For a full band schedule visit www.citygrowsfest. brownpapertickets.com.

Lawrenceville. 412-781-2082.

CLUB CAFE. Melinda ft.

Kristian Habenicht. South Side.

412-431-4950.

DIESEL. Alter the Design, SolarBurn, The Dovewires.

South Side. 412-431-8800.

DOUBLE WIDE GRILL. Cameron & Company. North Huntingdon.

724-863-8181.

DOWNEY’S HOUSE. James Claytor Band. Robinson.

412-489-5631.

MP 3 MONDAY R. COOK

16

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 08.24/08.31.2016

{PHOTO COURTESY OF MICHAEL HICKMAN}

FRI 26 BAYARDSTOWN SOCIAL CLUB. Unknown String Band & Rick Hornyak. Strip District. www.bayardstown.com.

CITY GROWS. City Grows Fest. Benefits Animal Rescue League. For a full band schedule visit www.citygrowsfest. brownpapertickets.com.

Lawrenceville. 412-781-2082.

CLUB CAFE. Fetish Noir w/ Open Hearts. early. Cisco Kid w/ Manic Soul, Lloyd Gross. late.

South Side. 412-431-4950.

LATROBE ARTS CENTER. Neon Swing X-Perience.

Latrobe. 724-537-7011.

MARKET SQUARE. Mark Williams, Summit Station & The Sparks. Downtown.

412-471-1511.

MOST WANTED FINE ART GALLERY. The Shondes, Softaware, Reign Check, Eye Roll.

Garfield. 412-328-4737.

THE PANHANDLE TRAIL. Deluded Youth. www.panhandletrail.org.

PITTSBURGH WINERY. WeGoGone w/ Good Old Ernie.

Strip District. 412-566-1000.

SMILING MOOSE. Radkey, Those Gorgeous Bastards West, LAZYBLACKMAN, CPx3, B.O.M.D Squad, Linwood & T-Real.

South Side. 412-431-4668.

SPIRIT HALL & LODGE. Chrome Sparks, The Hood Gang.

Lawrenceville. 412-586-4441.

FAIRVIEW PARK. The Dave Iglar Band. Bridgeville.

GOOSKI’S. Six Speed Kill, Resinaut, Lady Beast & Lansbury.

Polish Hill. 412-681-1658.

THE LAMP THEATRE. Hard Days Night. Irwin. 724-367-4000.

LEMONT. Take Two. Mt. Washington. 412-431-3100.

MICKEY’S PLACE. Gone South. McKees Rocks.

412-771-7606.

MOONDOG’S. Bill Toms & Hard Rain. Blawnox. 412-828-2040.

MR. SMALLS THEATER. Periphery w/ SikTh, Chon, Toothgrinder.

Millvale. 412-821-4447.

OAKS THEATER. Charlie Hustle & The Grifters ft. Habatat.

Oakmont. 412-828-6311.

THE R BAR. Johnni Holiday Band. Dormont. 412-942-0882.

REX THEATER. Pop Evil.

South Side. 412-381-6811.

Each week we bring you a new song from a local artist. This week’s offering comes from prolific singer-songwriter Robert Cook. Stream or download “All Wrapped Up in You,” from his new record, Grey Matter, for free at FFW>>, the music blog at www.pghcitypaper.com.

HEAVY ROTATION

SMILING MOOSE. Thank You Scientist with LAYNE, A Friendly Gesture Flock of Walri. South Side.

412-431-4668.

FRI 26 ANDORA RESTAURANT - FOX CHAPEL. Pianist Harry Cardillo & vocalist Charlie Sanders.

Fox Chapel. 412-967-1900.

ANDYS WINE BAR. Judi Figel.

Downtown. 412-773-8884.

BREW ON BROADWAY. Howard Alexander, Floyd King, Kosi, Jevon Rushton. Beechview.

412-563-6456.

GRILLE ON SEVENTH. Tony Campbell & Howie Alexander.

Downtown. 412-391-1004.

HARMONY MUSEUM. Harold Betters. Part of the Harmony Jazz Fest. Harmony.

888-821-4822.

MEADOWS CASINO. Tony Janflone Jr. Washington.

724-503-1200.

These are the songs Jesse Ley, of Delicious Pastries and the Strangeways dance night, can’t stop listening to:

SUN 28 CLUB CAFE. Mike Mains & the Branches w/ Jackson River, Townsppl. South Side.

412-431-4950.

SHOOTIN’ BULL. King’s Ransom.

Murrysville. 724-339-7299.

Boogarins

“6000 Dias”

MON 29 SMILING MOOSE. Kublai Khan, Jesus Piece, Malevolence.

South Side. 412-431-4668.

Parenthetical Girls

TUE 30

“A Song for Elle Greenwich”

REX THEATER. Jesse Royal.

South Side. 412-381-6811.

SMILING MOOSE. Lord Dying, Black Fast, Child Bite. South Side.

412-431-4668.

WED 31

SAT 27 ANDYS WINE BAR. Mark Pipas.

Downtown. 412-773-8884.

HARMONY OPERA HOUSE. Ben Barson Band w/ Gizel. Part of Harmony Jazz Fest. Harmony.

724-400-6044.

THE MONROEVILLE RACQUET CLUB. Jazz Bean Live.

Monroeville. 412-728-4155.

SUPPER CLUB RESTAURANT. Erin Burkett & Virgil Walters w/ Eric Susoeff. Greensburg.

724-850-7245.

Keren Ann

BLACK FORGE COFFEE HOUSE. Santhanas, Old Lords, Black Souled Pope. Knoxville.

412-291-8994.

CLUB CAFE. Tweed w/ Chalk Dinosaur. South Side.

412-431-4950.

NIED’S HOTEL. Nied’s Hotel Band w/ Slim Forsythe & Josh Verbanets.

Lawrenceville. 412-781-9853.

“My Name Is Trouble”

Mild High Club

“Skiptracing”

DJS

SUN 28 HARMONY INN. Catro Jazz Quintet. Part of the Harmony Jazz Fest. Harmony.

724-452-5124.

STONE VILLA WINE CELLARS. Erin Burkett & Virgil Walters w/ Max Leake & Eric Susoeff.

724-423-5604.

THU 25 MR. SMALLS THEATER. Centrifuge Thursdays.

At the Funhouse. Millvale.

603-321-0277.

PERLE CHAMPAGNE BAR. Bobby D Bachata. Downtown.

412-471-2058.

SPIRIT HALL & LODGE. Tall Tees: Hip-Hop & 2000s Music w/ Pete Butta. Lawrenceville.

412-586-4441.

FRI 26 ACE HOTEL PITTSBURGH. TITLE TOWN Soul & Funk Party. Rare Soul, Funk & wild R&B 45s feat. DJ Gordy G. & J.Malls. East Liberty.

412-621-4900.

ANDYS WINE BAR. DJ Malls Spins Vinyl. Downtown.

412-773-8884.

THE FLATS ON CARSON. Pete Butta. South Side.

412-586-7644.

ONE 10 LOUNGE. DJ Goodnight, DJ Rojo.

Downtown. 412-874-4582.

RIVERS CASINO. DJ Digital Dave.

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.

SAT 27 BELVEDERE’S. Down N Derby.

Lawrenceville. 412-687-2555.

DIESEL. DJ CK. South Side.

412-431-8800.

MIXTAPE. DJ Antithesis. ‘The 1990s (& a bag of chips)’ dance party. Garfield. 412-661-1727.

NEWS

REMEDY. Dance Crush.

Lawrenceville. 412-781-6771.

ROWDY BUCK. Top 40 Dance.

South Side. 412-431-2825.

SUN 28

THE GOLDMARK. Pete Butta. Reggae & dancehall.

Lawrenceville.

412-688-8820.

FRI 26 1LIVE STUDIO. DJ Goodnight: Open Elements. Avalon.

412-424-9254.

SAT 27 1LIVE STUDIO. DJ Goodnight: Open Elements. Avalon.

412-424-9254.

BLUES FRI 26 ELWOOD’S PUB. Jack of Diamonds. 724-265-1181.

MUSIC

+

ANDYS WINE BAR. Erin Burkett & Virgil Walters w/ Daniel May. Downtown.

412-773-8884.

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

412-904-3335.

PITTSBURGH WINERY. Glenn Strother, Cliff Barnes & Julz Powell. Strip District.

412-566-1000.

VALLOZZI’S PITTSBURGH. Eric Johnson. Downtown.

412-394-3400.

EVENTS

OTHER MUSIC THU 25 RIVERS CASINO. Chris Higbee Acoustic. North Side. 412-231-7777.

FRI 26 RIVERS CASINO. Darryl & Kim Duo. North Side. 412-231-7777.

SOERGEL ORCHARDS. Jim Scott.

Wexford. 724-935-1743.

SAT 27

SAT 27

KELLY-STRAYHORN THEATER. The Manhattans ft. Gerald Alston.

East Liberty. 412-363-3000.

RIVERS CASINO. Dueling Pianos, Terrance Vaughn Duo. North Side.

412-231-7777.

BROAD STREET BISTRO. The Flow Band. North Versailles.

412-829-2911.

THE HOP HOUSE. Ras Prophet.

Green Tree. 412-922-9560.

SUN 28 BAJA BAR AND GRILL. Ras Prophet. Fox Chapel. 412-963-0640.

MON 29 CLUB CAFE. Talking Dreads w/ Brahctopus. South Side.

412-431-4950.

COUNTRY

SUN 28 CARNEGIE LIBRARY, OAKLAND. Michael Griska. Oakland.

412-622-3114.

SHADYSIDE NURSERY. Vertigo Go, Turbosonics, DJ Zombo.

Shadyside. 412-363-5845.

MON 29 HAMBONE’S. Ian Kane. Jazz Standards, showtunes & blues.

Lawrenceville. 412-681-4318.

THU 25 CONSOL ENERGY PARK. Chris

The Ann Harris Smith Foundation & Laurel Auto Group present

w/ Joe Grushecky & the Houserockers & the Jarekus Singleton Band J g

A Concert to Benefit the

Johnstown Free Medical Clinic

ARSENAL CIDER HOUSE & WINE CELLAR. Lonesome, Lost & Foggy. Lawrenceville.

412-260-6968.

DOUBLE WIDE GRILL. Brian Belonzi. Mars. 724-553-5212.

PARK HOUSE. Che Zuro.

North Side. 412-224-2273.

SOERGEL ORCHARDS. Samantha Sears Band. Wexford.

724-935-1743.

THU 25

+

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

KELLY’S IRISH PUB & CARIBBEAN ISLAND. The Flow Band ft. Deb Star Joe Spliff Sam Fingers D. Lane Finneydredlox.

Beaver. 724-728-0222.

SAT 27

JAZZ

ARTS

FRI 26

ARSENAL CIDER HOUSE & WINE CELLAR. Well Strung.

Lawrenceville. 412-260-6968.

PALACE THEATRE. David Crosby. Greensburg.

724-836-8000.

FULL LIST ONLINE

HIP HOP/R&B

PARKLET ON PENN AVE. The Flow Band. Wilkinsburg. 412-867-5882.

FRI 26

GREENHOUSE WINERY. Strange Brew. North Huntingdon.

724-446-5000.

PARADISE ISLAND. Shot O’ Soul.

Neville Island. . w ww per 412-264-7225. a p ty ci h pg THE R BAR. BTK & .com Nicole Belli. Dormont.

412-942-0882.

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

412-431-4668.

SPOON. Spoon Fed. East Liberty.

412-362-6001.

THU 25

ACOUSTIC

SUN 28

WED 31

MEADOWS CASINO. Ruff Creek.

Washington. 724-503-1200.

NIED’S HOTEL. Wendy & The Lost Boys. Lawrenceville. 412-781-9853.

ANDYS WINE BAR. Kathy Connor. Downtown. 412-773-8884.

RIVERS CASINO. Jessica Lee & Friends. North Side. 412-231-7777.

JAMES STREET GASTROPUB & SPEAKEASY. Stevie Wellons, Speakeasy. Sweaty Betty, Ballroom.

North Side. 412-904-3335.

TUE 30

SAT 27

REGGAE

WED 31

SAT 27

THE FLATS ON CARSON. Pete Butta. South Side.

412-586-7644.

+

JAMES STREET GASTROPUB & SPEAKEASY. The Redeemers.

North Side. 412-904-3335.

THE LAMP THEATRE. Billy Price. irwin. 724-367-4000.

Young. Washington. 724-250-9555.

Wednesdays. North Side.

412-321-1834.

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

Friday, August 26th, 2016 Peoples Natural Gas Park 90 Johns Street, Johnstown, PA 15901

Doors: 5:30 PM Full Bar & Food Vendors Raffles on Autographed Band Memorabilia

TUE 30 CLUB CAFE. Famous October w/ Seth Pfannenschmidt.

South Side. 412-431-4950.

WED 31 ALLEGHENY ELKS LODGE #339. Pittsburgh Banjo Club.

+

TASTE

+

SCREEN

+

SPORTS

+

CLASSIFIEDS

17

PAID ADVERTORIAL SPONSORED BY

What to do IN PITTSBURGH

Aug 24 - 30 WEDNESDAY 24 Sarah Borges and the Broken Singles

SHADYSIDE...

THE ART FESTIVAL ON WALNUT STREET AUGUST 27-28

For more info visit animalrescue.org. 1p.m.

County Parks Summer Concert Series: Flow Tribe

CLUB CAFE South Side.

412-431-4950.

Over 21 show. Tickets: ticketweb.com/opusone. 8p.m.

HARTWOOD ACRES PARK. Free show. 7:30p.m.

THURSDAY 25

RADKEY SMILING MOOSE AUGUST 26

Korn & Rob Zombie: Return of the Dreads Tour 2016 FIRST NIAGARA PAVILION Burgettstown.

Tickets: livenation.com or 1-800-745-3000. 6:30p.m.

Chris Young: I’m Coming Over World Tour CONSOL ENERGY PARK Washington.

Tickets: ticketmaster.com.

6:30p.m.

FRIDAY 26 265 Floyd Collins

NEW HAZLETT THEATER North Side.

18

Tickets: frontporchpgh.com or 1-888-71-TICKETS. Through Sept. 4.

County Parks Summer Concert Series: Think Pink Floyd

Radkey SMILING MOOSE South Side.

412-431-4668. All ages show.

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

Station Square SOUTH PARK AMPHITHEATER. Summer Jam: Free show. 7:30p.m.

Gathering Field Seven Springs Wine Festival SEVEN SPRINGS. Over 21 event.

Tickets: 7springs.com.

Through Aug. 28.

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 08.24/08.31.2016

BESSEMER COURT STAGE Station Square. Free show.

7:30p.m.

All ages show.

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

SATURDAY 27 Shadyside…

The Art Festival on Walnut Street

WALNUT STREET Shadyside.

Free event. For more info visit artfestival.com.

Through Aug. 28.

Chrome Sparks SPIRIT Lawrenceville.

Florida Georgia Line:

Dig Your Roots Tour FIRST NIAGARA PAVILION Burgettstown.

Tickets: livenation.com or 1-800-745-3000. 7p.m.

Blink 182 FIRST NIAGARA PAVILION Burgettstown.

Tickets: livenation.com or 1-800-745-3000. 7p.m.

MONDAY 29 Kublai Khan

Oakland Block Party

SMILING MOOSE South Side.

412-431-4668. All ages show.

Tickets: ticketfly.com or 1-877-4-FLY-TIX 6p.m.

5TH AND N. BELLEFIELD AVE Oakland.

Free event. 11a.m.

TUESDAY 30

SUNDAY 28

Caravan for Canines UNDER THE HOMESTEAD GRAYS BRIDGE.

Gary Clark Jr.

STAGE AE North Side.

All ages show.

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

Doors open at 7p.m.

[COMICS]

“AROUND EVERY CORNER, THERE’S THIS TERRIFYING MAN.”

BLACK INK {BY TYLER DAGUE}

INFO@PGHCITYPAPER.COM

ASANI LAUNCH PARTY 7-11 p.m. Thu., Aug. 25. 980 Liberty Ave., Downtown.

412-471-6070 or www.culturaldistrict.org NEWS

+

[BOOKS]

CREATING

THE

KLAN

{BY JODY DIPERNA}

D

David Chaucer La Forest

Name five black superheroes from Marvel or DC Comics. It’s pretty difficult for those not steeped in comic-book lore.

David Chaucer La Forest wants to change that. He has founded Asani Entertainment to focus on a new superhero universe, inclusive of all but examined through the lens of characters of color.

Asani’s first goal is to publish a graphic novel called Origins of the Asaniverse. The venture hosts a Kickstarter launch party at the August Wilson Center on Aug. 25. The party, which will feature a costume contest and a presentation by La Forest, is aimed at raising at least 30 percent of the $45,000 needed for the first novel.

A businessman, writer and military veteran, La Forest grew up in St. Clair Village, a Pittsburgh housing project completely razed by 2010. Surrounded by crime and poverty, La Forest found his escape in pop culture and, especially, comic books. While studying at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, he experienced an epiphany through an unlikely source.

La Forest, 51, saw the 1984 TV movie The Fantastic World of D.C. Collins, a Walter Mitty-esque story about an African-American boy, played by Diff’rent Strokes star Gary Coleman, and his elaborate fantasies of heroism. All of the heroes he aspired to in the movie were white.

After studying film at Pitt and serving in the military, La Forest decided to devote his resources to creating a new superhero community that reflected American diversity.

“I want to produce positive role models,” says La Forest. “Now that we have proved we can go ‘Pow!’ and ‘Bang!’ and do CGI, can we use superheroes to show how we can be more human, talking about real issues affecting real people?”

Pending the success of the crowdfunding campaign and Origins of the Asaniverse, La Forest intends to expand into a series of fantasy, sciencefiction and horror graphic novels, each with its own characters. He hopes to branch into film and TV and even compete with giants Marvel and DC. “When you have 80-year histories, you also have 80 years of baggage,” La Forest says. “We try to create new characters that resonate with today’s audiences and reflect today’s mores.”

If the Kickstarter reaches its funding goal, he expects to release Origins of the Asaniverse by the year’s end.

UQUESNE UNIVERSITY history professor Elaine Franz Parsons is often occupied with thoughts of violence, terror and their place in the American imagination. One result is Parsons’ new book, Ku Klux: The Birth of the Klan During Reconstruction (University of North Carolina Press). The book pulls on all the threads around our enduring fascination with the white-supremacist group, the quintessential American terror organization. We are at once horrified by it and at the same time almost beguiled.

Why is this so interesting? And what is it that people talk about when they talk about the Klan?

Such questions echo to this day, with former KKK Grand Wizard and Louisiana congressman David Duke recently endorsing Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, then announcing his own run for the U.S. Senate.

Parsons recalls a childhood incident which sparked her interest in the Klan. It was, of all things, a trip to an amusement park in Branson, Mo., when she was 10. The indoor rollercoaster Fire in the Hole was scary, but rather than ghouls and goblins, it was full of male figures in horrible masks and costumes. As Parsons recalls, “They’re holding guns and ropes, and they threaten you. Around every corner, there’s this terrifying man.” (The ride, which still operates, is not technically Klan-themed; the figures are supposed to be “bald-knobbers,” Missourian political vigilantes.)

Parsons grew up in Connecticut, and this was her first encounter with a sort

{PHOTO COURTESY OF HEATHER MULL}

Author Elaine Parsons

of casual treatment of the KKK mythos. A few years later, when her family moved to Indiana, she witnessed an even more cavalier treatment: Her first Halloween there, some folks dressed up as Klansmen.

It was shocking and it made her want to understand this dreadful aspect of American culture.

In Ku Klux, Parsons does a deep dive into the KKK’s formation in May 1866, in Pulaski, Tenn., and explores how Klan violence was presented in the media throughout Reconstruction (1866 to 1871). Whereas a white man or white men attacking a black man in the South might not have gotten any press at all on its own, once an attack was CONTINUES ON PG. 20

MUSIC

+

ARTS

+

EVENTS

+

TASTE

+

SCREEN

+

SPORTS

+

CLASSIFIEDS

19

CREATING THE KLAN, CONTINUED FROM PG. 19

TOAD THE WET SPROCKET Wednesday, Aug 31

PARMALEE Thursday, Sep 1

JOHN MAYALL Wednesday, Sep 21

38 SPECIAL Friday, Sep 30

BRET MICHAELS Tuesday, Oct 4

LONESTAR

called Klan violence, it became a 19thcentury version of clickbait. Even negative press provided “a space for people to rally around,” says Parsons.

Without diminishing the horror or impact of the violence, she does point out that the Klan was not so centralized and organized as many believe. It’s an interesting dance that the Klan did, on the one hand claiming a grandiose, byzantine system of organizations and offices, even while creating something which was in fact, a wild, disparate entity, neither centralized nor hierarchical. In other words, there were lots of titles and theoretical framework, but no on-the-ground structure. There was no official Klan in some random town in South Carolina, for instance.

Throughout the 1850s and 1860s, there were frequent instances of white men attacking black men, shooting up

the homes of black residents, committing arson, and beating and lynching black men. “This was something which wasn’t at all new in the Klan period,” says Larson. “Unfortunately, this is the sad way the world worked in the Civil War-era South. So there are roving gangs of men committing terrible atrocities. Then the Klan starts doing this and brands itself the Klan.”

What was created in Pulaski was more of an idea, an honorific in which violent men could bask and cloak themselves. If a group of white guys went out to attack a black man (for any reason at all), they could claim to be Klansman, just by saying so, or by dressing up in costumes. Though they failed as the Confederacy, these men felt they had this new thing, this new invisible “nation.” It became an ersatz confederate government and, as Parsons said,

“WHAT WAS CREATED WAS MORE OF AN IDEA IN WHICH VIOLENT MEN COULD BASK AND CLOAK THEMSELVES.”

“They wanted to imagine themselves as incredibly well organized.”

The KKK, which experienced revivals in the 1920s and ’60s, is today much weakened, but still active. The Southern Poverty Law Center estimates that “there are between 5,000 and 8,000 Klan members” in the U.S., and identifies three organizations in Western Pennsylvania that use the Klan name.

Meanwhile, parallels between the inaugural, Reconstruction-era Klan and other organizations of terror, such as Al Qaeda and ISIS, are hard to miss. A terrorist organization can sprawl, driving an informal network of terror, like that which emboldened Omar Mateen, who killed 49 people and wounded 53 others at Pulse nightclub in Orlando. “He had no relationship to ISIS, but in his mind he called them up, he was associated with it, which strengthened his plan. It made sense [to him] because what he was doing was like what the people in ISIS are doing,” Parsons says.

As she writes, “It is the very definition of terrorism that it produces surplus fear.”

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

Friday, Nov 4

- - - - - all shows 8pm - - - - -

Tickets at jergels.com

{CORRECTION} Last week’s review of Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Co.’s Seven Guitars misidentified two actors’ roles: Ty Barrow plays Vera, and Terri Bridgett portrays Louise.

Party around the clock

Nine epic hours of entertainment and activities celebrating the launch of Carnegie Museum of Art’s LIGHTIME, including the unveiling of a new interactive photography installation on the museum's main plaza.

NIGHTIME is the right time.

20

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 08.24/08.31.2016

Tickets available at cmoa.org $25 ($20 members, $15 students, $10 children)

7 p.m.–4 a.m.

SEP 9 2016

CMOA's Hillman Photography Initiative is an incubator for innovative thinking about photography.

cmoa.org

Enjoy food trucks, art galleries, live performances, and activities for the whole family from 7–10 p.m. Then, CMOA goes 18+ until 4 a.m. with dance party vibes for late-night revelers.

Divas, drag queens and disco scenes.

B Y TA R E L L A LV I N M C C R A N E Y | D I R E C T E D B Y T O M É C O U S I N {PHOTO COURTESY OF JAY ZUKERKORN}

Jantaminiau’s L’Image Tranquille

9/09 | 9/25

[ART REVIEW]

SHOE-INS {BY NATALIE SPANNER} AS A CLUMSY 5’9” woman with weak ankles, I avoid high heels. I prefer sandals, slippers or going barefoot. I did not expect to be much enthralled by Killer Heels: The Art of the High-Heeled Shoe, which I imagined as a glorified shopping experience at the Frick Art & Historical Center. I knew Louis XIV wore them well in a painting, and had heard of butchers donning them to avoid stepping in blood.

I went wanting to learn more about the shoes’ role in history, their controversial embrace by the feminine, and to gain appreciation for the design of a pesky element in my wardrobe. Delightfully, Killer Heels delivered.

KILLER HEELS: THE ART OF THE HIGH-HEELED SHOE runs through Sept. 4. Frick Art & Historical Center, 7227 Reynolds St., North Point Breeze.

412-371-0600 or www.thefrickpittsburgh.org

The opening statement of the exhibit, organized by Brooklyn Museum curator Lisa Small, acknowledges the shoe’s polarizing quality and impracticality, then invites visitors to explore six themed sections detailing the shoe’s impact on “attraction, transformation, empowerment and play.”

The “Revival & Reinterpretation” section notes that while high heels in the West began as class signifiers, they later denoted gender, as men found them “irrational.” They were initially called “Persians,” referencing their use in Persian equestrian tradition as “stirrup shoes.”

Other sections are titled Rising in the East, Glamour & Fetish, Architecture, Metamorphosis and Spacewalk.

All over this exhibit were shoes I ogled: George Pierce’s 1968 Satellite Jumping Shoes, to make you feel like you were walking in space; Iris Schieferstein’s Horse Shoes which were more disturbing than they had any right to be; and an exquisite 1988 rendition of Cinderella’s glass slippers by Maison Martin Margiela, of Belgium.

My favorite section, Rising in the East, explained the West’s fascination with the shoe as exotic. On display are stilted bath sandals from the Ottoman Empire; shoes worn by male actors in ancient Greek tragedy, called kothornoi; Turkish evening slippers; antique Syrian qabåqib; and — the shoes I most wanted to try on — Walten Steiger’s contemporary “Ishi Wedge.” Ishi is Japanese for “stone.”

The shoe has a downward slope between the heel and arch, an inversion on the regular arch of a high heel, and is meant to feel like your foot is flush against a smooth stone.

Killer Heels honestly offers something for everyone, whether you wear sneakers, flats or Audrey Hepburn stilettos.

Ronald Allan-Lindblom / Artistic Director Kim Martin / Producing Director

For tickets, www.pittsburghplayhouse.com or (412) 392-8000.

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

NEWS

+

MUSIC

+

ARTS

+

EVENTS

+

TASTE

+

SCREEN

+

SPORTS

+

CLASSIFIEDS

21

{PHOTO COURTESY OF JAMES ORR}

Tom Protulipac (left) and J. Dawson Laabs in Loot, at Little Lake

[PLAY REVIEWS]

FARCED LAUGHS {BY TED HOOVER} LITTLE LAKE Theatre Co. steps out on a

theatrical limb with its production of Joe Orton’s Loot. It’s billed as a farce, but most audiences, when they hear that word, imagine a slamming-door-filled set on which a married man juggles a couple of mistresses.

That’s not what Loot is about.

LOOT continues through Sept. 3. Little Lake Theatre, 500 Lakeside Drive South, Canonsburg. $12-20. 724-745-6300 or www.littlelaketheatre.org

Orton’s 1964 black comedy is about two sexually fluid and voracious young men, Hal and Dennis, who rob a bank and hide the money in the coffin of Hal’s recently deceased mother. Hal’s widowed father, meanwhile, is being vamped by his dead wife’s nurse, Fay, a woman with seven deceased husbands and looking to add another. Bursting into the house is a detective so abusive he’d make a Baltimore cop blush.

Along the way, a corpse is defiled, middleclass notions of sex and morality are lampooned, and the Catholic Church comes under repeated satiric attack.

Who couldn’t love it?

The Little Lake audience, that’s who … at least at the beginning. Orton was as mannered a playwright as they come.

Described as “Oscar Wilde of the welfare

22

state,” his dialogue is tightly woven and epigrammatically overloaded, difficult for contemporary audiences to take in. Add the Catholic-bashing, and the laughs weren’t exactly flowing on opening night.

Which might explain Art DeConciliis’ direction: He’s overseen some broad, broad playing, more suited to a cartoony Ray Cooney farce. A few of the performances were egregiously over the top, completely missing Orton’s point about the ruthless cold-bloodedness of authority. Natalie Spanner and Michael Makar, as Fay and Hal, come closest to playing in the Orton style, with John Reilly contributing as the grieving widower. (Spanner is an occasional CP contributor.)

But here’s the thing: The less Ortonlike the production became, the more the audience loved it. And those over-the-top moments, which bothered me greatly, are what the audience ate up! So DeConciliis, who’s an artistic cornerstone of the Lake (and justifiably so), just might know his crowd better than I do.

And when you consider that Orton is long dead (his lover Kenneth Halliwell beat his head in with a hammer), I guess he’ll never hear about it.

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

REEL AMUSING {BY MICHELLE PILECKI} INSPIRED BY the Wildean maxim, “Nothing

succeeds like excess,” the Summer Company presents a rollicking, season-

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 08.24/08.31.2016

ending A History of the American Film.

Christopher Durang’s multilayered 1976 musical comedy (a Broadway hit in 1978; given a new ending in 1995) probes the identity of 20th-century America through Hollywood archetypes and popular movies.

The five central players embody the clichés represented by various stars: tough guy James Cagney (who morphs into Bogie, Brando, et al.); perennial ingénue Loretta Young; good guy Henry Fonda; moll-vixen Bette Davis; and wise-cracking loser-atlove Eve Arden. Supporting them are more than 50 characters played by, in this case, 10 actors — changing color, gender, etc. as necessary.

Director John E. Lane Jr. heaps on the creative chaos with recent events, film clips and a movie “singalong” before curtain to introduce the cast and get the audience revved up. No, it’s not perfectly smooth, but there’s so much stuff coming so quickly — film references, double entendres, in jokes, out jokes — that plenty will surely tickle a funnybone. My favorite bit is Loretta (Colleen Garrison), in her sweet-and-innocent days, reciting Hollywood’s Hays Production Code as the values she admires and hopes to emulate. Later, the sadder-but-wiser Loretta vamps through the song “Euphemism for Sale,” upending the Code. (Credit Mel Marvin for History’s music, Durang for lyrics.)

Garrison anchors the many plot threads, looking for a happy ending as everyone around her chases different identities. Classic leading-man type Frank Schurter cruises through Jimmy and assorted personae, staying credible as the splintering storylines becomes less so. As Bette, Jill Jeffrey gleefully munches scenery, reenacting classic flicks from Citizen Kane to Dr. Strangelove. Nathaniel Yost (Hank), way more likable than Fonda, and Sarah Murtha (Eve) provide what passes for “sensible” people.

[BOOK REVIEW]

BRIEF SHOTS {BY FRED SHAW}

Among the cast of dozens, Gina Preciado commits grand larceny as scene-stealing mothers. Tim Syicarz, among various roles, does my second-favorite piece as “Victor Henreid,” Paul Henreid simultaneously in Now Voyager and Casablanca. There’s just not enough space to sing the praises of actors Jillian Lesaca, Umar Faraz, Neil Donaldson, LaMar Darnell Fields, Lauren Gardonis, Sarah Williams and Tyler Jennings, as well as stage manager Elysse Dalzell, music director Stephanie Zolla and choreographer Nora Nee.

In film, a flash cut, according to the dictionary, is “an extremely brief shot, sometimes as short as one frame, which is nearly subliminal in effect … short staccato shots that create a rhythmic effect.”

In Pittsburgh writer Charles W. Brice’s debut poetry collection, Flashcuts Out of Chaos (WordTech Editions, $19), readers encounter memory cultivated into narrative poems acting as cinematic moments.

It’s a book that celebrates life while revealing troubling family matters in honest, confessional ways.

Forgoing a bio page, Brice goes postmodern by including his background in the first poem, “Include a Brief Biographical Statement (Three Lines) with Your Poetry Submission.” It begins, “I am a sixty-year-old man and look it. / My once auburn beard is grey, / my Beatle hair all gone now,” and discloses, using stream-of-consciousness style over 54 lines, that the writer is a “fat,” “former psychoanalyst” with “a PhD in psychology” and little formal training in creative writing. The quirkiness highlights an obsessiveness at getting to the truth of important personal moments.

In “Marmalade,” Brice writes of being on a train traveling from Cheyenne to Omaha in 1954 with his parents, “three fat pink people,” attended to by a staff of hard-working black men. The sharp-eyed imagery summons memories of how “the porter with his tiny xylophone / calls passengers to breakfast or dinner, / waiters in the dining car, white coats, /… rhythmic clatter of cups and saucers, / boxcar acrobats balance huge trays / as the train sways and heaves.” There’s nice movement and physicality in the lines as the piece strives to mend a racial divide that persists today, albeit in different ways.

While later poems in the 97-page collection like “Just Once” and “Being and Nothingness and Being” lean toward the philosophical, earlier poems tend to be fleshed-out, tangible and more successful.

In “Goodbye,” Brice writes of Auntie Ursal, who would “sing to me, or chant / her rosary beads, rattle them against my bed.”

After losing her war-veteran son to a car crash, “she jerked at the 21-gun salute.”

It’s fleeting moments like these that Brice successfully transfixes and brings to life for closer examination.

While personal scrutiny continues in poems like “At Ten I Thought Everyone Had A Shoebox Filled With Human Teeth …,” “Prematurely Ripped” and “Checked Out,” in the end, Flashcuts stands as an ambitious first collection seeking to make sense of both time and place.

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

INFO@PGHCITYPAPER.COM

A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN FILM continues through Sun., Aug. 28.

The Summer Company at Genesius Theater, Duquesne University, Uptown. $5-15. thesummercompany.com

Special Advertising Section

PITTSBURGH’S NEWEST AND ONLY TWO-STORY SMOKE SHOP IN THE HEART OF BLOOMFIELD

STUDENTS ALWAYS GET 15% OFF WITH STUDENT ID NEWS

+

MUSIC

+

ARTS

+

EVENTS

+

TASTE

+

SCREEN

+

SPORTS

+

CLASSIFIEDS

23

Special Advertising Section

CHROMOS

(412) 772-1473 chromoseyewear.com

IME I T ’S T VE TO WA E BY GOOD ER MM TO SU ART T AN D S NG SETTI THOS E M ALAR KS CLOC

NEW ADDRESS:

4517 Liberty Avenue Pittsburgh, Pa 15224

COUNCIL OF THREE RIVERS AMERICAN INDIAN CENTER

“Like” us on FB Pittsburgh Dance Center

(412) 488-2750 cotraic.org

412.681.0111

We offer FREE SERVICES TO PRESCHOOL CHILDREN and their families regardless of

www.pittsburghdancecenter.com

2 0 1 6 20 1 7

Chromos Eyewear is a revolutionary eyewear company in Pittsburgh. All of our styles are designed in Pittsburgh and our frames start at just $95 with single vision lenses starting at $50, which includes an anti reflective coating. Not only that, every pair of glasses sold supports our non-profit, Chromos Cares.

Chromos Cares donates free eye exams and glasses to elementary school students who would otherwise have no access to eye care.

In our first year, 2015/2016, we donated over 300 eye exams and are aiming to reach 750 for 2016/2017. Our storefront in Lawrenceville is also one of a kind, we not only feature our glasses but have an art gallery space featuring a rotation of local Pittsburgh artists. What goes better with great glasses than beautiful art to look at? If you think of something let us know. Come down to 5166 Butler St and have an eyeglasses experience like you’ve never had before! Don’t forget to follow us on all social media @chromoseyewear to learn about special deals, events, and more!

S E R IO U S LYU S A D V E N T U REOR T H E AT + FOR AGES 7 SERIES

Theatreworks USA (United States) DECEMBER 2-3, 2016 AUGUST WILSON CENTER

Puppet State Theatre Company (Scotland) APRIL 6-8, 2017 TRUST ARTS EDUCATION CENTER The Cashore Marionettes (United States) MAY 18-21, 2017 TRUST ARTS EDUCATION CENTER

Gravity & Other Myths (Australia) NOVEMBER 12, 2016 AUGUST WILSON CENTER

TRUSTARTS.ORG/BRIDGE 24

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 08.24/08.31.2016

SEASON TICKETS 412-456-1390 SINGLE TICKETS 412-456-6666 GROUPS 10+ TICKETS 412-471-6930

ETS TICK E L G + SIN KETS N TIC O S A SE

ON SALE

!

N OW

race, creed, color or national origin. We are Currently recruiting 3, 4, and 5 year old children for fall classes. Transportation is available in most areas. Transportation provided and subject to availability in Brookline, Dorseyville, Knoxville, Hazelwood and Overbrook. Special services are available for Children with disabilities. For more information call 412-488-2750.

IRONLUNG

(412) 291-8928 facebook.com/ Ironlungpgh

5166 Butler St. Lawrenceville

PITTSBURGH CLO ACADEMY (412) 281-2234 pittsburghCLO.org

As Pittsburgh’s premier training Academy for Musical Theater, we are dedicated to celebrating talent, encouraging dreams and helping develop diverse skills. By providing dance, voice and acting training in a positive, fun-filled class setting, the CLO Academy encourages both an appreciation for musical theater and a well-rounded education.

BACK TO SCHOOL

In part of Pittsburgh’s East Affiliated with one of the End renovations, IronLung’s most respected musical focus is on leading and theater organizations in the supporting local, customcountry, the CLO Academy er-driven businesses. With the offers professional quality help of his team, Sean Bastin ction courses designed to fit Se g sin rti ve Ad Special has created an original and the needs of individual rare experience. Knowledgestudents. Three diverse able about its products and programs - the PNC Children’s School, the artists, IronLung values superior service by Student School and the Pre-Professional giving the customer exactly what they want.

School - allow every student to find the Unlike its competitors, IronLung is fair and program that’s right for them. honest about price and quality. Where other Whether a child dreams of meeting friends stores might overcharge for foreign products, who share their love for performing arts or IronLung is open about the distinction beprofessionals who can help them pursue a tween American made glass and that made in career on stage, Pittsburgh CLO is the place China. No question is left unanswered, and no where their dreams can come true. Visit customer leaves unsatisfied. From high-end or www.pittsburghclo.org to learn more or low-end products to fair prices, IronLung has register for classes. something for everyone.

Rx Glasses U Sunglasses All frames $95 Contact Lenses U Doctor on site Chromos Cares give back program

Call or schedule your eye exam online (412) 772-1473ÊUÊchromoseyewear.com Council of Three Rivers American Indian Center Early Childhood Education Programs

t r a t S d a e H e e r F n io it Tu and Preschool!

Now Hiring Pharmacy Techs!

old rs a e y 5 3 n re d il h C For ATION PROVIDED (subject to availability)

Attend our Fall Supermarket Hiring Day on Saturday, 8/27 from 10 am-4 pm.

TRANSPORT

FIELD TRIPS MEALS, SNACKS & HARGE PROVIDED AT NO C erbrook.

d and Ov Knoxville, Hazelwoo e, ill yv rse Do , ne kli Broo bilities. for children with disa le ab ail av e ar s ice Special serv

8-2750 n please call 412-48 io at rm fo in e or m r Fo race, ildren regardless of

to all families and ch y.

Enrollment is open , sex, age or disabilit color, national origin

For more information or to apply online prior to event www.Gianteagle.com/HiringEvent Giant Eagle is an equal opportunity employer.

NEWS

+

MUSIC

+

ARTS

+

EVENTS

+

TASTE

+

SCREEN

+

SPORTS

+

CLASSIFIEDS

25

PITTSBURGH DANCE CENTER

STUDENT ID DISCOUNTS: PITTSBURGH BALLET THEATRE Tickets start as low as $16.00 All student tickets will be held at will call.

Must show student ID. culturaldistrict.org/group-sales/studenttickets PITTSBURGH PIRATES SAVE UP TO $10 ON TICKETS TO ALL SUNDAY-FRIDAY GAMES* For select games during the 2016 season, students with a valid college email address can receive a special discount off the advance ticket price of select games. • Save $10.00 per ticket on OutďŹ eld Box tickets • Save $6.00 per ticket on all Grandstand tickets pittsburgh.pirates.mlb.com/ PITTSBURGH PLAYHOUSE Point Park University students get into any production FREE with their student ID. All non-Point Park students are $10. pittsburghplayhouse.com

(412) 681-0111 pittsburghdancecenter.com

CHROMOS $45 ROUTINE EYE EXAM with student ID. ($60 value) chromoseyewear.com COMPASS SELF STORAGE Student discounts available. compassselfstorage.com DIESEL CLUB LOUNGE NO COVER with student ID (non events) dieselpgh.com JCC 5% OFF OF MEMBERSHIP with student ID. Mention City Paper (Offer valid until 10/31) JCCPGH.org

Located in the heart of BloomďŹ eld, PDC offers affordable dance & ďŹ tness classes for ages 3-Adult. Some of the most popular classes include: Aerial Silks, Aerial Yoga, Ballroom Dance, Circus class, SWAG ďŹ tness & Youth MMA. PDC continually stays on the cutting edge bringing unique programs to Pittsburgh area. Upcoming new classes: Amp’D Up Aerial Fitness, Buti Yoga, Pound UNIVERSITY OF Fit & Zouk. PDC offers PITTSBURGH bachelorette parties, ALCOHOL AND Circus birthday parties SMOKING and facility rental. PDC RESEARCH can also bring the circus (412) 624-8975 party to your backyard. @PittASRL Owner, Holly Dayton-Kirby The University of on is a Pittsburgh native with a Pittsburgh’s Alcohol cti Se g sin rti Special Adve and Smoking Research life long passion for dance, Laboratory is open martial arts and sports.

Monday through Friday from 9:00 AM until PLANNED PARENTHOOD 5:00 PM. We are located on the University of 1.800.230. PLAN Pittsburgh’s campus in Oakland. The purpose ppwp.org of our current study is to look at the charac@PPWPA teristics of cigarette smokers between the Planned Parenthood of Western PA offers ages of 18 and 55. To hear more about this affordable reproductive health care services three-part research study and ďŹ nd out if to women, men and families throughout you may qualify for an appointment, please western Pennsylvania regardless of age give us a call us at (412) 624-8975. You may or income. Our professional medical staff also ďŹ nd us on Facebook @PittASRL. We look provides gynecological care, birth control forward to hearing from you!

BACK TO SCHOOL

SILK SCREEN FILM FESTIVAL 50% OFF FILMS with Student ID silkscreenfestival.org SUPERCUTS $1 OFF with Valid Student ID (Forbes Ave. & South Aiken Ave. Locations) supercuts.com

We’ve got you covered!

-Gynecological Care -Birth Control -Pregnancy Testing -STD & HIV Testing -Emergency Contraception -Cancer Screenings

SMOKERS WANTED

$IIRUGDEOH &RQÄ&#x;GHQWLDO &RQYHQLHQW

933 Liberty Avenue 1.800.230.PLAN www.ppwp.org @PPWPA

FOR PAID RESEARCH STUDY

Students at Pittsburgh CLO Academy can choose from ma variety of classes including Musical Theater, Voice, Acting, ting, A capella, Jazz, Hip Hop, Tap, Ballet, Piano and more!

SLWWVEXUJK&/2 RUJ ‡ 412-281-2234

TICKETS ON SALE NOW! Adults: $25 ‡ 6WXGHQWV (gr. 12 and under): $15

September 24 & 25 &$3$ 7KHDWHU ‡ WK 6WUHHW )RUW 'XTXHVQH %OYG Performed by Pittsburgh CLO Academy Students

26

pittsburghCLO.org/education 412-281-2234

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 08.24/08.31.2016

0DGGLH 'LFN _ 3KRWR E\ $UFKLH &DUSHQWHU

REGISTER TODAY! Classes Begin September er 6 ‡ Ages A 3 3-18 18

information and a variety of methods that ďŹ t the patient’s needs, pregnancy testing and counseling, pelvic and breast exams, screening and treatment for STDS, HIV testing and counseling, emergency contraception, and medical and surgical abortions. PPWP’s health services aren’t only for women.

Services for men include screening and treatment for STDs and HIV risk assessment, testing and counseling. PPWP’s health care is affordable, convenient, and conďŹ dential.

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:

FREE ADMISSION 4PM-8PM

Ć $VSSFOUMZ TNPLF DJHBSFUUFT

AUTOGRAPH SIGNING BY PITTSBURGH RIVERHOUNDS PLAYERS VENDORS & MORE! WWW.UACSWPA.ORG/EVENTS/SOCCER 412-583-8279

Ć #F ZFBST PME JO HPPE IFBMUI and speak uent English Ć #F XJMMJOH UP ĖMM PVU RVFTUJPOOBJSFT and to not smoke before 2 sessions

&BSO GPS completing this study.

SPONSORED BY:

Grace Robinson Insurance Agency Inc.

For more information, please call:

(412) 624-8975

Giant Eagle is hiring talented Team Members for a wide range of positions.

Join us for our Giant Eagle and Market District

FALL SUPERMARKET

HIRING EVENT Saturday, August 27th, from 10:00am – 4:00 pm!

Stop by one of our participating hiring locations in your area and get on the fast-track to a delicious career!

We are hiring Team Members for a variety of full and part-time positions and departments, including:

Bakers | Pharmacy Techs | Cashiers Grocery & Produce Clerks Meat, Seafood, Deli & Cheese Specialists Prepared & Gourmet Food Clerks Service Counter For more information or to apply online prior to the event visit

www.Gianteagle.com/HiringEvent GIANT EAGLE IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER. NEWS

+

MUSIC

+

ARTS

+

EVENTS

+

TASTE

+

SCREEN

+

SPORTS

+

CLASSIFIEDS

27

28

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 08.24/08.31.2016

FOR THE WEEK OF

08.24-08.31.16 Full events listed online at www.pghcitypaper.com English has many words for laughter: chuckles, giggles, chortles, guffaws, snickers.

You’ll need all of them for Pittsburgh Comedy Festival 2016. Hosted by Comedy Arts Pittsburgh, the four-day festival features 34 comedy acts and eight workshops to strengthen your funny bone.

The third annual festival’s headliners at the University of Pittsburgh’s Henry Heymann Theater are standup comedian Quincy Jones (pictured) and long-form improv duo Sheldon (with Rob Belushi, and Second City member Tim Stoltenberg subbing for Jon Barinholtz). Jones recently had an HBO special, Burning the Light, and Sheldon has headlined improv festivals nationally. The festival also includes other touring comics and locally based acts including Molly Sharrow, Alex Stypula, John Dick Winters and Ed Bailey.

The festival is also working to increase accessibility regardless of age or income.

Saturday’s program includes a Kids Comedy Cabaret for children and kids at heart, and a workshop featuring family-friendly improv games accessible to people with special needs. Three of this year’s workshops are pay-what-you-can. “Being able to lower the barrier — to take the workshop, to see more of the shows — was really important to us, being able to open the door to more folks who might not even take that first step and see what comedy is about,” says the festival’s communityprogramming director Brian Gray.

Many changes stem from the festival’s new community committee. “Having the festival on a college campus at probably one of the busiest times of the year, which is move-in weekend, creates a sense of excitement and jogs people into a state that, for over three days, [they] can meet a lot of people that they wouldn’t ordinarily,” says the festival’s Mary C. Parker.

For comedy newcomers, the pay-whatyou-can workshops include a Pittsburgh Improv Crash Course where members of three local improv troupes provide their own unique takes on comedy and coaching as you join in the performance.

BY TYLER DAGUE

^ Fri., Aug. 26: In the Making

thursday 08.25 FESTIVAL The Three Day Blow Writers Festival, a conference for food and drink writers, blows into Pittsburgh. The festival (named for a Hemingway story) features all kinds of foodie events around town, including some individually ticketed talks open to the public. Sadly, tonight’s drinks keynote by Esquire cocktails expert Dave Wondrich is sold out.

But tomorrow’s food keynote features Philadelphia-based chef and restaurateur Michael Solomonov (who grew up in Pittsburgh and is pictured here), and Saturday’s talk is by chef, educator and author Bryant Terry, a San Franciscobased advocate for a just, healthy and sustainable food system. Each talk costs $12.50 and takes place at the August Wilson Center. Bill O’Driscoll Tickets and passes: $30-275. Various venues. www.thethreedayblow.com

ART Neu Kirche Contemporary Art Center keeps making waves, and tonight might be its biggest evening yet. The Center marks just how far it’s come with In the Making, an evening of art openings that activates the whole historic former North Side church and its nearby grounds. In the Main Gallery, the In the Making exhibit spotlights the creative processes of the Center’s

friday 08.26

Thu., Aug. 25-Sun., Aug. 28.

4301 Forbes Ave., Oakland. $10-20 per show (ticket bundles available). www.pittsburghcomedyfestival.org NEWS

of different lengths through town, concluding with the Finish Line Festival. But till then, your other BikeFest options include today’s Riverfront Bike Tour highlighting public art. The two-hour ride, hosted by the city’s Office of Public Art, starts near the Carnegie Science Center — at R.M. Fisher’s landmark Langley Observatory Clock sculpture — and winds through Downtown and the South Side, stopping at everything from Larry Kirkland’s new World War II Memorial to the Industrial Arts Co-op’s “The Workers.” BO 6 p.m.

North Side, Downtown and South Side. $10 donation requested. 412-391-2060, x237, or www.publicartpittsburgh.org

OUTDOORS BikeFest 2016 wraps on Sunday with PedalPGH, the venerable event that lets you do one of three marked rides

^ Thu., Aug. 25: The Three Day Blow Writers Festival CONTINUES ON PG. 30

+

MUSIC

+

ARTS

+

EVENTS

+

TASTE

+

SCREEN

+

SPORTS

+

CLASSIFIEDS

29

SHORT LIST, CONTINUED FROM PG. 29

AUGUST 25-28

LIVE AT THE HENRY HEYMANN THEATER

PITTSBURGH

COMEDY FESTIVAL

funny n’at

STAND UP IMPROV COMEDY WORKSHOPS

blogh.pghcitypaper.com

Clicking “reload” makes the workday go faster

GET PASSES TODAY AT

PittsburghComedyFestival.org #PghIsFunny

^ Fri., Aug. 26: Free Speech! (Whle Supplies Last)

Fallow Grounds for Sculpture artists, including M. Illuminato (Tripoli Street Bakery), Monique Redmond and Layne Waerea (Northside Civil Encounters) and Amy Masters, whose Roadside Attraction sculpture “Sammitch” (yep, a giant sandwich, pictured) also debuts. In the newly renovated Great Hall is work by digital artist Nathan Lorenzo. And Yinzer House Gallery (Neu Kirche’s residency house and hostel) inaugurates its role as a space for local artists with Doll House, outsider artist Thomas Waters’ exhibit of photographs, prints and sculpture exploring the world of dolls. BO 6 p.m. (free). 1000 Madison Ave., North Side. www.neukirche.org

STAGE

EVERY THURSDAY IS

COLLEGE NIGHT! FEATURING A LIVE DJ &

80 CENT DOMESTIC BOTTLES 9:30 PM - 11:30 PM

Weekly specials: SUNDAY - 69 CENT WINGS

FOLLOW US ON:

WEDNESDAY - 99 CENT TACOS THURSDAY - $4.99 GYRO & FRIES

929 5th Avenue • Coraopolis www.jailhousesaloon412.com 30

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 08.24/08.31.2016

Long before ambush photography, 24-hour news and TMZ, the original American media circus occurred in a rural Kentucky cave, in 1925. Floyd Collins, the award-winning 1996 musical staged by Front Porch Theatricals at the New Hazlett Theater starting tonight, depicts the true story of Mr. Collins as he explores for a cave to exploit as a tourist attraction. When he becomes trapped 200 feet underground, reporters swarm from across the country, sensing their chance to grip the nation, while a desperate rescue effort forms.

Floyd Collins features a score by Tonywinner Adam Guettel {PHOTO COURTESY OF DEANNA MURO} (The Light in the ^ Fri., Aug. 26: Floyd Collins Piazza). Tyler Dague 8 pm. Continues through Sun., Sept. 4. 6 Allegheny Square East, North Side. $24-30. 412-320-4610 or www.frontporchpgh.com

COMEDY American comedy just wouldn’t be the same without The Second City. A touring company from the legendary Chicago troupe returns courtesy of Pittsburgh Public Theater for three performances of a new show, Free Speech! (While Supplies Last). Skewering the heightened absurdity of this campaign season, Second City’s next generation of talent performs new sketches, songs and improv along with political satire made famous by alumni Tina Fey, Stephen Colbert and KeeganMichael Key. The first show is tonight. TD 8 p.m. Also 5:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Sat., Aug. 27. O’Reilly Theater, 621 Penn Ave., Downtown. $35-60. 412-316-1600 or www.ppt.org

Affordable Fun for f Everyone! y

EVERYONE IS A CRITIC EVENT: FREESTYLE, a Style Week Pittsburgh fashion show and exhibition at the Carnegie Music Hall, in Oakland CRITIC: Monica Navarro, 25, a graduate student from Squirrel Hill WHEN: Thu.,

Aug. 18

Open Now thru Sept. 25 Weekends & Labor Day 10:30am- 6:30pm

It was good, very entertaining and a lot of versatility in terms of the clothes. I know nothing about the 1920s or 1960s, but it was pretty. A lot of the fashion I would never wear because I’m on the more conservative side, but [it’s] beautiful.

They were sexy without showing too, too much. That’s also what I liked about it — the gamut of it is nice. I think this is a good place to showcase different styles and decades. The people here were dressed like the event, so it was kind of like a fashion show within itself, so that was pretty cool.

BY TYLER DAGUE

saturday 08.27 FESTIVAL For five years, Assemble, a community space for arts and technology, made do in a storefront that was neither quite large enough nor properly outfitted. In June, the well-regarded nonprofit shut down — but only to prepare for its big re-opening two blocks down Penn Avenue, in a space that’s bigger, newer and more accessible to all (central air included). At today’s Community Open House, meet Assemble’s teachers, learn about its free after-school and Saturday programs, make projects to take home, and even sign up for programs like Assemble Afterschool and Girls Maker Night. BO 1-4 p.m. (free). 4824 Penn Ave., Bloomfield. RSVP at 412-254-4230 or nina@assemblepgh.org.

ust 27 & 28

ONLY! Aug For This Weekend

! g n i l F c i t l Ce

ART Two new exhibits have artist receptions tonight at BoxHeart Gallery.

Painter and sculptor {ART BY THOMAS BIGATEL} ^ Sat., Aug. 27: BoxHeart Gallery Thomas Bigatel’s show Giving Up the Ghost (and select visual reflections) showcase the local artist’s approach to releasing and harnessing difficult emotions and experiences through rushes of color and motion. Meanwhile, Bethlehem, Pa.’s Keith Garubba captures the intersection between art and science in Understanding Drips: A Dr. Armbruster Adventure in Research. Garubba uses the fictional Armbruster as a framework to explore the relationships between the overlapping disciplines though sculpture and screenprinting. TD 5-8 p.m. Exhibits continues through Sept. 30. 4523 Liberty Ave., Bloomfield. Free. 412-687-8858 or www.boxheartgallery.com

Discount Coupons Available at all: Medieval Amusement Park Music, Comedy, Jousting, Over 100 Master Artisans Delicious Food & Drink, Games, Rides and More!

FREE Parking

Open Rain or Shine • No Pets Please Just Southeast of Pittsburgh, off I-70 exit 51A

WORDS

Purchase Tickets Now at:

“All possible feelings about Jesus,” promise organizers of tonight’s Free Jesus Poems About Jesus, “will be treated with equal respect and seriousness.” Note that the program might include poems about anything from “Jesus loaves and

or PittsburghRenfest.com

For information Call: (724) 872-1670

CONTINUES ON PG. 32

NEWS

+

MUSIC

+

ARTS

+

EVENTS

+

TASTE

+

SCREEN

+

SPORTS

+

CLASSIFIEDS

31

SHORT LIST, CONTINUED FROM PG. 31

wed e r B C r a f t n the i ia n a v l sy Penn ilds W

NOW AVAILABLE We brewed this all-malt amber lager using imported German malts and Germany-style hops to provide a classic “festbier” experience. 5.7% A.B.V. Available in 6 & 12 pks.

1/2 & 1/4 kegs

blogh.pghcitypaper.com

The first hit is free.

Actually, so are all the others.

{PHOTO COURTESY OF ASSEMBLE}

^ Sat., Aug. 27: Assemble’s Community Open House

fishes and wine from water” to “Jesus music, Jesuses from space, Jesus burlesque [and] Jesus painting.” Yes, the folks who brought you 2014’s Free Snake Poems About Snakes and last year’s Free Monster Poems About Monsters return — taboos be, um, darned. Abject Pictures, Hyacinth Girl Press and Most Wanted Fine Art host; headliners include Cherri Baum, Rachael Deacon, Art Ettinger and Hyacinth Girl’s Margaret Bashaar. There’s also a Jesus-poems book-release and an open mic (kind of like the Sermon on the Mount). BO 7-11 p.m.

5015 Penn Ave., Garfield. Free. www. facebook.com (search “free Jesus poems”)

.

INLC .

T S I D N A BEER TREET OAK D MPLE S 402-406 SE

25th anniversary

customer day appreciation August 25th noon-8

bbeer eer sampling 22-4pm 4pm giveaways food and prizes

tuesday 08.30 MUSIC Any short list of contemporary Pittsburgh jazz talent would include Dwayne Dolphin. As a veteran of Wynton Marsalis’ band who’s played with everyone from Maceo Parker to Abby Lincoln THE and Stanley Turrentine, Dolphin is known Y OF TRUST} RTES L COU ULTURA O T nationally, but remains a stalwart of the local scene. {PHO URGH C B : S 0 T 3 IT .

P Tonight, see Dolphin and friends play live outdoors as part ., Aug in ^ Tue ne Dolph of the BNY Mellon JazzLive series, in Katz Plaza. After today, y a w D the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust program has one more show al fresco (the Sept. 6 Roger Humphries Jam Session) before heading indoors for the season. BO 5-7:30 p.m. Penn Avenue at Seventh Street, Downtown. Free. 412-456-6666 or www.trustarts.org

wednesday 08.31 WORDS

30 Pack

$ 19.9 9 + TAX

www.MELLINGERSBEER www.

MELLINGERSBEER.com .com 412.682.4396 like us on Facebook!

32

@MellingerBeer

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 08.24/08.31.2016

New York-based nonprofit The Moth is devoted to upholding the art of storytelling through live performances, a bestselling book, podcast and public radio’s award-winning The Moth Radio Hour. Tonight, Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures sponsors the annual visit of the Moth Mainstage. The aptly named host Katie Tellers will introduce nationally touring Moth raconteurs Adam Edmund Linn, Abbas Mousa, Catherine Palmer and Suzi Ronson, as well as locally based storyteller Kelly Parker. The show will feature music by violinist Sena Jane Thompson. The evening’s theme at the Byham Theater is Between Worlds. TD 7:30 p.m. 101 Sixth St., Downtown. $20-45. 412-622-8866 or www.pittsburghlectures.org

DE

SI

the

ON

THE CURRENT MENU BLENDS NEW RECIPES AND ELBOW ROOM CLASSICS

A TASTE OF HOME {BY ASHLEY MURRAY} On Route 51 in Brentwood, Padam Pradhan and his family shopped for groceries — not at the towering Giant Eagle, in Brentwood Towne Square, but at the Nepali Bazaar market directly across the street.

“We are Bhutanese, so they have all the good stuff,” Pradhan, of Whitehall, says. (Nepal, a small country tucked between India and China in the Himalayan Mountains, is where many ethnic Nepali Bhutanese escaped to during violence in the 1990s.)

The market’s shelves are stacked with bags of lentils and spices, and several kinds of flour. There are fresh mangos and pickled mango, fresh coconuts and coconut powder, sweet tamarind and tamarind chutney.

Dishes from Nepal are heavy on rice, lentils, spices and vegetables. For example, one of the most popular Nepali dishes, dal bhat, a thick stew-like lentil mixture over rice, is made with onions, garlic, chili peppers and a variety of spices that often includes turmeric, coriander and cumin, among others.

For Pittsburghers, the Nepali Bazaar, and other Asian restaurants and grocery stores around the city, are a foray into ethnic foods and cultural items. (The store also sells Hindu and Buddhist ceremonial objects.) But Pradhan and his family find the store necessary.

Pittsburgh is a designated location for the U.S. Refugee Resettlement program.

About 5,000 ethnic Nepali Bhutanese have been resettled here since 2008, mainly in South Hills neighborhoods; hence the market’s Brentwood location. Pradhan spent 21 years in a refugee camp in Nepal before being resettled in Pittsburgh five years ago; until then, his daughters and niece had lived their entire lives in the camp.

As his youngest daughter reaches up to the counter to carry the container of lychee-fruit snacks, Pradhan’s 13-year-old daughter, Sanjita, explains that this is the market her family always comes to, though she admitted they sometimes venture into Giant Eagle. She says she loves school and learning a new language, but still misses home.

“In our dreams we are in Nepal with our family and friends, but when we wake, we’re in Pittsburgh,” she says.

Fortunately, there is the Nepali Bazaar for some reminders of home.

“WE ARE BHUTANESE, SO THEY HAVE ALL THE GOOD STUFF.”

AMURRAY@PGHCITYPAPER.COM

{CP PHOTO BY VANESSA SONG}

Salmon Salad: Norwegian salmon filet, red onions, cucumbers, pecans and seasonal fruits on a bed of spinach and arugula

LOCAL INSTITUTION {BY ANGELIQUE BAMBERG + JASON ROTH}

Y

OU COULD BE forgiven for feeling a

bit of whiplash regarding the 4700 block of Ellsworth Avenue. For half a century, it was home to the Elbow Room, a neighborhood bar that doubled as a place for a not-too-shabby dinner. Then, five or six years ago, the restaurant’s longtime owners shuffled the deck by moving the Elbow Room to Walnut Street. In its old space on Ellsworth, they opened the decidedly trendier Tavern 1947 (named after the Elbow’s year of origin), and in an annex next door, the more casual Bites & Brews.

Then the Elbow Room closed … only to be reborn, after a couple more trips around the sun, right back in its old location.

Bites & Brews remains but, for good measure, has just been rebranded, with an all-new menu that includes a throwback to Hotlicks, the barbecue place in the

Balcony on Walnut (if you remember that, you’re officially a local). We’ll test the waters there in the future. First, we wanted to see how all this churn had played out at the Elbow Room, one of the East End’s most established establishments.

ELBOW ROOM 5744½ Ellsworth Ave., Shadyside 412-441-5222 HOURS: Mon.-Thu. 11 a.m.-11 p.m.; Fri.-Sat. 11 a.m.-midnight PRICES: Starters $6-12; salads, sandwiches and burgers $8-16; entrees $18-29 LIQUOR: Full bar

The first thing we noticed was that it has kept most of Tavern 1947’s dimly cozy decor, including plenty of chalkboard paint and a fetching faux-patina-ed cop-

per wall. The next was that, contrary to last winter’s announcement, chef Darren Smith of the late, lamented Szmidt’s Deli was not in the kitchen. Smith’s approach to house-cured meats and house-made pierogies would have been a perfect fit for the rebirth of the Elbow Room. Instead, the current menu blends new recipes, holdovers from 1947 and Elbow Room classics.

The latter category in particular is a bit of a time capsule, not of the restaurant’s mid-century origins, but of local cuisine circa 1990. “Elbow Room Favorites” are both familiar and a bit fussy, like chicken with apples, onions and cherries with apple-jack brandy. But everything old is new again, and if our visits to several brandnew restaurants are any indication, fussy recipes are having another moment, so perhaps the Elbow Room is right on time.

4040 Saw Mill Run Blvd., Brentwood NEWS

CONTINUES ON PG. 34

+

MUSIC

+

ARTS

+

EVENTS

+

TA S T E

+

SCREEN

+

SPORTS

+

CLASSIFIEDS

33

BENJAMIN’S WESTERN AVENUE BURGER BAR

bar • billiards • burgers

www.taipei-fc.com Thank you to our valued customers for your support and loyalty.

THE BEST Chinese Restaurant Fox Chapel has to offer!

Owner Steve Weng and Master Sushi Chef Mike Lin would like to welcome you to Taipei. At Taipei, you can expect great comfort foods prepared by our kitchen chef to the beautifully crafted sushi dishes from the sushi bar. Pair your meal with good drinks from our full bar and excellent wine list.

Have a fun l & s u c c ess f u 2016-201 7 ! s c ho o l y e a r

HAPPY HOUR: Monday-Friday 4-6pm 1124 Freeport Rd FOX CHAPEL

412-781-4131

MONDAY & THURSDAY $2 Yuengling 16oz Draft ____________________ TUESDAY Burger, Beer, & Bourbon $11.95 ____________________ WEDNESDAY Pork & Pounder $10 ____________________ FRIDAY Sangria $3 ____________________ SATURDAY & SUNDAY 10:30am-3pm Brunch Specials & Bloody Mary Bar

----- HAPPY HOUR ----1/2 OFF SNACKS $2 OFF DRAFTS $5 WINE FEATURE

Mon- Fri 4:30 – 6:30pm

900 Western Ave. North side 412-224-2163

BenjaminsPgh.com

LOCAL INSTITUTION, CONTINUED FROM PG. 33

While none of the lengthy list of starters is identified as an Elbow Room Favorite, items like spinach-artichoke dip and crabcake are local classics.

We’d hardly sat down before we ordered a decidedly non-classic dish — gnocchi tots, deep-fried pillows of mashed potatoes. Deep-frying is a reliable pub move, but here the effect was extraordinary, because the gnocchi within their crispy, dark-brown coating were so light, yet substantial. (French fries offered a similar, satisfying contrast between deeply browned exterior and fluffy interior.) The tots were served with a zingy, Thousand Islands-like sauce that Angelique could have eaten with a spoon.

Our other starter, Greek quesadilla, sounded as promising but was much less successful. The filling of vegetables with feta should have worked, but it was a mess. The tortilla wasn’t remotely crisp, and the vegetables — including spinach, cucumber, artichoke, red pepper and olive — formed a soggy, incoherent mishmash that was hard to enjoy even when it wasn’t falling apart.

House-roasted meats, part of the menu of Tavern 1947, have stuck around for the new incarnation of the Elbow Room. The sandwich menu features in-house corned beef and turkey, among a broad range of options from diner staples such as grilled cheese and tuna melt to veggie options and deli-style sandwiches and salmon burgers.

“The GW” sandwich was a wellexecuted classic combo of turkey, brie and green apples, with not-too-sweet honey mustard on grilled wheat. In “The Earnest” — prosciutto, pulled pork and Swiss cheese — alas, the main flavor was salt.

Spicy mustard was a suitable condiment, but chopped, not sliced, pickles were a strange choice.

Mac-and-cheese, a 1947 holdoverturned-contemporary-darling, was available in a couple of forms. The namesake one is basically three-cheese pasta, not that that’s a bad thing: A creamy sauce, soft but not mushy penne, and a blend of cheddar, gruyere and smoked gouda offered a pleasing range of tangy, nutty and milky flavors. A passing plate — or we should say, skillet — of the mac with fried chicken looked too good to pass up, but it was also too good to be true. The massive slab of chicken breast was heavily coated with an herb crust that broke off the meat, which tended towards dryness, especially the thin end of the breast, which was basically jerky.

The new Elbow Room attempts to weave together many strands from its 70year history. Some are strong, but others need to be reinforced — or set aside.

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

34

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 08.24/08.31.2016

[PERSONAL CHEF]

PINAKBET {BY EME TRUECHILD PFLEEGOR, TROY HILL} I had a housewarming and pinakbet is all I wanted to make. Though I moved into a house nothing like the homes I grew up in, the chaos awoke the craving for a food I’ve never had a recipe for. Like most comfort foods, this stew-like dish can be contentious. Everyone has tweaks, but no recipe. My version has had its own migration.

Growing up in Hawaii, with a white father and a brown mother, often meant catering to his tastes; out went the bittermelon and whole peppercorns. The melded food of Hawaii, which includes influences from the Philippines, among others, is generally mild, sweeter and less pungent; out went the bagoong. I haven’t eaten meat, barring necessity (and excepting fish sauce) since I was a teenager; out went the pork. I am poor; out went the wing beans. I even recently ate pinakbet with brown rice, while living with a lovely, Northeastern hippie.

Still, the recipe feels distinctly Ilocano, like a base for people, like me, who have come a long way. It still requires a side plate for slices of ginger and garlic cloves. Since living on my own, I have reincorporated bittermelon and whole peppercorns, and even sometimes add a small smear of bagoong (shrimp paste) and top with burnt-garlic slices.

INGREDIENTS • 2-3 pounds tomatoes, oes, any variety • 2-3 inches Chinese e ginger, sliced • 1 head of garlic, in cloves • 2-3 tbsp. whole peppercorns • ½ cup stock to start • ½ kabocha squash, roughly cubed • ½ bittermelon, cored and soaked in salty water for at least 20 minutes and rinsed well • 2 small Chinese ese eggplants • 1 bay leaf • ¼ pound of okra • Salt and fish sauce to taste INSTRUCTIONS Roughly chop tomatoes. Over medium heat, add to pot with ginger, garlic, bay leaf, peppercorns and stock. Once the stock is boiling and the tomatoes have softened, add salt and fish sauce.

Broth should seem salty (with bagoong tasting of the ocean) before adding the vegetables. Start with kabocha. Cook until nearly soft, then add eggplant and bittermelon. When eggplant darkens, add okra. Cook until done. Serve immediately with rice. Serves six to eight.

WE WANT YOUR PERSONAL RECIPES AND THE STORIES BEHIND THEM. EMAIL THEM TO CELINE@PGHCITYPAPER.COM.

Thank you City Paper readers for voting us one of the Best Chinese Restaurants in Pittsburgh

China Palace Shadyside Featuring cuisine in the style of

Peking, Hunan, Szechuan and Mandarin

100 VEGETARIAN

{CP PHOTO BY DREW CRANISKY}

Hidden Harbor’s Sarah Clarke mixes up a cocktail with dry ice.

DISHES!

[ON THE ROCKS]

SERIOUSLY FUN COCKTAILS

Delivery Hours

A playful spirit enlivens mixed drinks {BY DREW CRANISKY} AMONGST CRAFT-COCKTAIL cognoscenti,

the 1970s and ’80s are generally regarded as the nadir of mixology. It was an era of sticky-sweet shooters and oversized martini glasses filled with neon concoctions, a time when an order of an old fashioned might get you watery whiskey with muddled maraschinos. In those dark days of American cocktailing, more time went into dreaming up titillating names than putting a thoughtful drink in your glass.

A few years ago, the now-defunct Pittsburgh Cocktail Week issued a challenge to the city’s bartenders: Create a modern spin on one of those much maligned “disco drinks.” For one glorious week, Pittsburgh was awash in Harvey Wallbangers and Long Island Iced Teas that featured local craft spirits and all manner of house-made tinctures and syrups. The drinks were colorful, creative and often ridiculous. And while a Slippery Nipple might not be the most erudite order, it captures something that the craft-cocktail renaissance too often ignores: fun.

In the 1990s, bartenders around the world rediscovered bygone classics and began to invent new ones. They strapped on their sleeve garters and got serious about mixing drinks — perhaps a bit too serious.

At stuffy cocktail lounges and faux speakeasies, pretension and snobbery flowed as freely as the liquor.

If beer and wine are the bread and butter of American imbibing, then cocktails are the banana split: an indulgent, celebratory, delightful treat. Cocktails should

11:30 - 2 pm and 5-10pm

come with a smile, not a lecture. These days, bartenders are marrying that ’80s sense of fun with the values of the cocktail revival, which taught us the importance of fresh juice, quality ingredients and proper technique.

Here in Pittsburgh, a playful spirit is alive and well at bars across the city. Smallman Galley, for instance, recently gave its cocktail list a baseball-themed overhaul, creating a menu that’s as loaded with nerdy baseball jokes as it is with delicious drinks. Try the Bobby Bonilla’s Tortillas, a margarita variation made with corn-chipinfused mezcal.

Other bartenders are working unexpected ingredients and techniques into classic cocktail templates. At Troy Hill’s Scratch Food & Beverage, Mandi Crosby also mixes up a mezcal margarita: Hers is sweetened with an IC Light Mango simple syrup. At Franktuary, bar manager Jake Cox is experimenting with molecular techniques to create an entire cocktail contained in a large sphere. And at Spencer Warren’s sporadic PopUp Embury series, everything from boozy gummy bears to Pop Rock garnishes are fair game.

But nothing blends serious cocktail chops with a strong dose of whimsy like the wide world of tiki. Stop by Weird Science Wednesday at Squirrel Hill’s Hidden Harbor for drinks that unite childhood treats with wacky science projects (oh, and oodles of rum). If tiki-fied Dippin’ Dots and cartons of clarified milk punch don’t sound like a good time, I don’t know what does.

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

NEWS

+

MUSIC

+

ARTS

+

EVENTS

+

5440 Walnut Street, Shadyside 412-687-RICE chinapalace-shadyside.com

Tantalize your taste buds!

North/South Indian Indo Chinese & Tandoori

ee

$1 off any entr

Catering call Didar 412-877-7731 Lunch & Dinner BUFFET every day Vegan and Gluten-Free Entrees Availablee 20% Off Take Out 5PM-7PM

OVER

25 YEARS

EXPERIENCE

N. CRAIG STREET allindiapgh.com 3315 OAKLAND 412-681-6600 O TA S T E

+

SCREEN

+

SPORTS

+

CLASSIFIEDS

35

BOOZE BATTLES {BY CELINE ROBERTS}

@babyadiutori

@crabbymum

Featuring Our World Class Chef

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.

THE DRINK: SLOE GIN FIZZ

Adan Morales John Marcinizyn (Latin Guitar)

@thegal_ivanter

@melissashontzphotography

VS.

Friday Nights 6:30-8:30pm.

Thanks for sharing your photos of Flowers with us last week!

This week’s theme is Reflections.

Tag your photos of city reflections with #CPReaderArt and we’ll share our favorites!

pghcitypaper

The 5th Judicial District of Pennsylvania and Allegheny County

Brillobox

Spoon

4104 Penn Ave., Bloomfield

134 S. Highland Ave., East Liberty

INGREDIENTS: Plymouth sloe gin, simple syrup, soda water, lemon juice, lemon wedge OUR TAKE: Every sip of this cocktail was tart and citrusy with plenty of stonefruit notes from the sloe gin. An almostcreamy texture paired with light carbonation from the soda water made for an enjoyable contrast and added depth to this straightforward classic.

INGREDIENTS: Hayman’s sloe gin, Hayman’s Royal Dock Navy Strength gin, simple syrup, lemon juice, seltzer, lemon wheel OUR TAKE: Spoon’s bartender John Wabeck is known for his command of gin, so this cocktail was an expert take. Plummy and tangy, the libation was perfectly balanced between tart and sweet notes, with a tangy finish that encouraged further sipping. Light acidity from the lemon juice kept it refreshing, but not astringent.

This week’s Sound Bite takes you on a hunt for chanterelle mushrooms with Cavan and Tom Patterson. www.pghcitypaper.com

Pretrial Services urges you to enjoy your weekend out in Pittsburgh but

make the right choice,

don’t drink & drive.

One Bordeaux, One Scotch, One Beer Terra Vecchia Reserve Vermentino-Chardonnay 2014 Retail Price: $10/glass “This blend is primarily made of Vermentino grapes with a little Chardonnay. The maritime climate of the region — they cultivate oysters close by! — gives the wine some salinity. When you cross two cultures, the influence in the wine can be unique and beautiful.”

— RECOMMENDED BY ALYSSA MCGRATH, WINE AND BEVERAGE DIRECTOR, CASBAH MEDITERRANEAN KITCHEN AND WINE BAR

TERRA VECCHIA RESERVE VERMENTINO-CHARDONNAY 2014 is available by the glass at: Casbah, 229 N. Highland Ave., Shadyside.

36

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 08.24/08.31.2016

FIRST DATE {BY AL HOFF}

PERHAPS BEST OF ALL ARE THE FILM’S RAVISHING VISUALS AND LYRICAL SENSIBILITY

Even if you don’t align politically with the Obamas, there is no reason why an open-hearted viewer wouldn’t enjoy Southside With You, a sweet, low-key film about the future First Couple’s first date.

A sort-of-awkward first date that turns into a successful long-term relationship is a universal experience. Writer-director Richard Tanne adopts a similar style and vibe to Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise: a walking-and-talking affair in which two strangers learn about each other and themselves.

Future First Couple: Tika Sumpter and Parker Sawyers

CP APPROVED

In the summer of 1989, Barack Obama (Parker Sawyers) picks up Michelle Robinson (Tika Sumpter) at her family’s home on Chicago’s South Side. Obama has a summer gig as a law associate at the tony firm where Robinson works. From the outset, she explains that this is not a date; she is reluctant to create office gossip.

On their not-a-date, the two visit an art museum (where Obama lays down some knowledge about painter Ernie Barnes and Good Times); eat sandwiches in the park; attend a community meeting; and see Do the Right Thing, all while sharing their personal and professional histories. Robinson is measured, but not afraid to push back; Obama is swagger-lite, his obvious romantic interest tempered by a legitimate fear of messing it up.

(She warns him that she has no time for “another smooth-talking brother.”)

In press notes, Tanne explains that many of the details are drawn from public sources in which the Obamas recalled their first date. One exception: The film’s centerpiece, in which Obama gives an impromptu speech at a housingproject gathering, actually occurred on a later date. But the cheat is worth it — for its peek at Obama’s early oratory and persuasive skills, and to see how Robinson notes this.

Neither actor is a perfect match but somehow it works. It’s a testament to their skills how hard you want this date you’re watching to go well. Even if every single person in the world, including you, knows how it turns out. Starts Fri., Aug. 26

On a quest: Kubo (right), with his snow monkey

TWO STRINGS GOOD {BY BILL O’DRISCOLL}

L

OTS OF KIDS’ FILMS invoke the emotional trauma of a missing parent; in Kubo and the Two Strings, it’s the boy protagonist’s dad who is gone. But the opening scenes of this animated fantasy adventure up the ante by casting young Kubo as both breadwinner and caretaker for his semi-invalid (if magical) mother. And the film’s villains, while they’re not out to do anything so grand as destroy the world, do want Kubo’s right eye — the one they didn’t take the first time they got hold of him.

That detail adds a compellingly dark, Brothers Grimm-like undertow to director Travis Knight’s engaging animated film.

Like all good kids’ movies, it’s more complex than it seems. Kubo (voice of Art Parkinson) is a street storyteller with magical powers: As he spins his tales for villagers while playing his three-stringed shamisen, self-folding origami figures act out the epic battles in a way that echoes this film’s own unique combination of stop-motion pho-

tography (for character close-ups) and CGI. And just as Kubo’s themes include the power of story, Kubo himself becomes a hero of what could be one of his tales. With two eerie witches — his own aunts! — intent on plucking that dark-

KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS DIRECTED BY: Travis Knight FEATURING THE VOICES OF: Art Parkinson, Charlize Theron, Matthew McConaughey In 3-D, in select theaters

CP APPROVED brown eye, he’s literally hurled into a quest to recover his late samurai father’s unbreakable sword and indestructible armor. His guides are a tiny, mute, origami samurai; a protective if irascible snow monkey (Charlize Theron); and a formerly human samurai who’s now a loyal but forgetful anthropomorphized

beetle warrior (Matthew McConaughey).

While the leads are charming, Kubo, full of both grit and wonder, isn’t easily distinguishable from other plucky kids in fantasy adventures. Some of the story’s acts of magic appear out of nowhere, as needed, rather than being set up. And toward its end, the film gets a bit talky.

Nonetheless, Kubo’s flow of action and humor kept kids at a preview screening alternately engrossed and giggling. The film treats Japanese culture respectfully, even while adding touches like Kubo’s magical, windmilling power chords on his banjo-like shamisen. Perhaps best of all, though, are Kubo’s ravishing visuals — coastal sunsets, mountain vistas, a bustling village — and a lyrical sensibility that gives us treats like a boat made from autumn leaves, and a revelatory journey to the bottom of the sea. These are perfect dreamlike accompaniment for the story’s testament to the faculty of memory as humanity’s treasure.

AHOFF@PGHCITYPAPER.COM

NEWS

+

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

MUSIC

+

ARTS

+

EVENTS

+

TASTE

+

SCREEN

+

SPORTS

+

CLASSIFIEDS

37

2, Wed., Aug. 24 (Schenley). The Peanuts Movie, Thu., Aug. 25 (Brookline); Fri., Aug. 26 (Arsenal); and Sat., Aug. 27 (Grandview). Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens, Sat., Aug. 27 (Riverview) and Wed., Aug. 31 (Schenley). Rent, Sun., Aug. 28 (Schenley); Mon., Aug. 29 (Mellon Square); and Tue., Aug. 30 (West End/Elliott Overlook). Films begin at dusk. 412255-2493 or www.citiparks.net. Free

FILM CAPSULES CP

= CITY PAPER APPROVED

NEW DON’T BREATHE. Fede Alvarez directs this thriller about some young people who think it will be an easy thing to burgle a blind man’s house.

It might be, if he weren’t a serial killer. Starts Fri., Aug. 26 EQUITY. The cutthroat workplace of Wall Street is the focus of Meera Menon’s drama, with a special emphasis on three women working there.

Naomi (Breaking Bad’s Anna Gunn) is a top-level investment banker; her specialty is rounding up investors for tech IPOs, and she’s still stinging from the poor performance of her last one. Her assistant, Erin (Sarah Megan Thomas), feels put upon by Naomi, and chafes at the lack of recognition. Meanwhile, Naomi has been contacted by an old college pal, Samantha (Alysia Reiner), now a prosecutor investigating illegal trading at Naomi’s firm.

As a Wall Street thriller, it’s fairly standard stuff, and the plot snaps together too neatly to generate any useful muckraking outrage. Its freshness comes from presenting women in roles typically occupied by alpha males. The women have to put up with the standard headaches that come in this high-stress, high-performance environment, but with the added complications of their gender. There is the suggestion that the women have less room to fail, and less opportunity to be promoted. They’re expected to not make gender a part of their jobs (one woman struggles to hide a pregnancy that she knows will slow her ladder climb) and encouraged to use it (i.e., if being flirty helps close a deal, go for it).

So points awarded for a female-centric film, with talent in front of and behind the camera; Equity was written by Amy Fox, as well as Thomas and Reiner. The women dominate the action, it is their lives and work (and the intersection thereof) that is forefronted — let the men be plot devices! A level playing field means women get to be the same d-bags as men in the pursuit of money and power, and to employ micro-thin advantages (including immoral behavior) to gain an edge. It’s not right — but while these are not inspirational heroines, they are refreshing in a way. Starts Fri., Aug. 26. AMC Loews Waterfront (Al Hoff)

GONE WITH THE WIND. Sure, you know the story: Those damn Yankees burn the South; Ashley can’t man up; Scarlett pouts all over Tara; and Rhett Butler doesn’t give a damn. But sure as some Southern belles will never go hungry again, Victor Fleming’s epic 1939 historical melodrama holds up to repeated viewings.

See it on a big screen. 7:30 p.m. Wed., Aug. 24. AMC Loews Waterfront. $5

The Innocents collective horror: The world has intruded, and in the ugliest manner possible. Maria, who is modern and non-religious, finds her own philosophies about spirituality challenged.

The subject matter is tough, though never unwatchable. Ultimately, the take-away from this beautifully filmed and well-acted work is a quietly inspirational story of resilience, forgiveness and forged sisterhood that underscores the shared humanity between these unlikely parties. In French and Polish, with subtitles. Starts Fri., Aug. 26. Manor (AH)

MECHANIC: RESURRECTION. Jason Statham never sleeps — at least not when there is international danger afoot! The action-oriented actor is back in Dennis Gansel’s assassin-for-hire thriller, a sequel to 2011’s The Mechanic. Starts Fri., Aug. 26

HANDS OF STONE. Edgar Ramirez and Robert De Niro star in this bio-pic about legendary boxer Roberto Duran (“no mas”) and his coach, Ray Arcel. Starts Fri., Aug. 26 THE INNOCENTS. Anne Fontaine’s historical drama focuses on a brutal consequence of war (even in these modern days) that is rarely explored in any emotional detail: the rape of civilian women by conquering soldiers. This film, inspired by real events, takes place in Poland in December 1945. There, a young French female doctor, Mathilde (Lou de Laâge), is working with the French Red Cross, patching up and repatriating French soldiers after the war. Late one night, she is begged by a Polish nun named Maria (Agata Buzek) to come to the rural convent, where another nun is giving birth. Mathilde learns that upon “liberating” Poland nine months ago, Russian soldiers repeatedly raped the nuns; six others are due to deliver.

So begins a period of charitable transgression by both women: Mathilde is to work only with the French, and the convent forbids all visitors. Additionally, the nuns live in a highly spiritual cloistered state, and there is a real challenge in breaking through their shame, guilt and

CP

38

Manhattan to an up-and-coming part of Brooklyn; Jake’s dad (Greg Kinnear) has inherited a storefront and the apartment above it. Tony’s mom, a Chilean immigrant portrayed by Paulina Garcia (Gloria), runs a dress boutique in the storefront, and initially all is well.

The boys strike up a real friendship — wonderfully depicted in everyday scenes of how not-very-articulate boys manage to form real bonds — and dream of attending the same high school. But this is 21st-century New York, and everybody is scrambling: The rent has to be raised in the dress shop, whatever the repercussions. It plays out as bittersweetly as you’d expect: Nobody really wins. But Sachs recognizes the ordinary yet profound ways that life moves forward, and that even painful steps yield forms of progress. Starts Fri., Aug. 26. Harris (AH)

Little Men LITTLE MEN. Filmmaker Ira Sachs specializes in small-scale dramas, where key interactions are quietly observed and the emotional punches don’t explode off the screen so much as stick in your craw long after the film is over. There was the May-December marriage in Forty Shades of Blue, the romantic breakup in Keep the Lights On and 2014’s death-by-gentrification heartbreaker, Love Is Strange. Sachs returns to the catalyst of New York City gentrification in his latest, a coming-of-age story in which two 13-year-old boys shoulder the heaviest emotional burdens.

Shy Jake (Theo Taplitz) meets the outgoing Tony (Michael Barbieri) when Jake’s parents relocate from

CP

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 08.24/08.31.2016

WAR DOGS. When they write the book about how American popular cinema processed the Iraq War, Todd Phillips’ comedy will get filed under “War as Wallpaper.” Yeah, the plot — based on real events — takes place during and because of the Iraq War, but it could be any war and nobody’s asking any tough or even interesting questions.

In 2005, a pair of junior-high buddies — brash and amoral Efraim (Jonah Hill) and marginally more moral and low-key David (Miles Teller, also serving as our listless narrator) — search for business opportunities in the endless morass of Pentagon equipment requisitions, now ramped up like crazy because of the war.

They get wind of a very big deal — a zillion or so AK47 bullets are needed. Through a third-party hook-up (Bradley Cooper), the coked-up duo make a deal with the military and fly to Albania, where everything goes great until it goes to shit.

It’s mildly amusing; it’s got a Wolf of Wall Street-lite vibe, complete with manic Hill, classic-rock soundtrack, “arty” freeze-frames and an unabashed celebration of bros-make-money. But any laughs are at the expense of remembering that this war still goes on, and how dipshits like this cost the U.S. taxpayers a fortune, and how we let it all happen because “war is an economy” and “winning” and so on. There is ample space for interrogating war and its assorted moral and economic complexities with humor — indeed, I’d argue strongly for that — but this is just a toothless bit of silliness. (AH)

REPERTORY DOLLAR BANK CINEMA IN THE PARK. Pitch Perfect

GASWORK: THE FIGHT FOR C.J.’S LAW. This 45-minute 2015 documentary from environmental filmmaker Josh Fox (Gasland) looks at unsafe working conditions in the oil and natural-gas industries, including the unknown effects of being exposed to various chemicals. Patricia DeMarco, who has a background in energy, economic development and environmental policy analysis, will provide additional commentary. 7:30 p.m. Thu., Aug. 25.

Pump House, 880 E. Waterfront St., Munhall. Free. www.battleofhomestead.org AMADEUS. Milos Forman directs this 1984 bio-pic that tells the story of 17th-century musical prodigy Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Tom Hulce), as recounted by his rival Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham), now held in an insane asylum. Fri., Aug. 26, through Thu., Sept. 1. Row House Cinema SCARFACE. Brian DePalma’s 1983 remake of the 1932 gangster classic has twice the length and half the potency. Overblown and bloody almost to the point of cartoonishness, this version follows Cuban refugee Tony Montana (Al Pacino) on his ascent to Miami cocaine lord, running his empire with huge guns, electric saws and destructive megalomania. Fri., Aug. 26, through Thu., Sept. 1. Row House Cinema THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL. Wes Anderson directs an ensemble cast — including Ralph Fiennes, F. Murray Abraham and Mathieu Amalric — in his 2014 dramedy about the goings-on at a famous European hotel between the World Wars. Fri., Aug. 26, through Thu., Sept. 1. Row House Cinema LAST ACTION HERO. With a magical ticket, a kid is transported to the world of his favorite cinematic action hero. Arnold Schwarzenegger and F. Murray Abraham star in John McTiernan’s 1993 action comedy. 10 p.m. Fri., Aug. 26. Row House PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET. When pickpocket Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark) rifles the wrong purse on the subway, he winds up with a piece of incendiary microfilm. Oh, and that lady (Jean Peters) — the hardluck girlfriend of some Communist agents — wants her purse back, too. This brisk, hard-boiled 1953 crime story directed by Sam Fuller concludes a month-long, Sunday-night series of Cold War films. 8 p.m. Sun., Aug. 28. Regent Square SUPERIOR. Catch this sneak preview of Edd Benda’s new film, inspired by the true story of two young Michigan men in 1969 — one poised to go to college, the other to join the war in Vietnam — who undertake one last summer adventure: a two-week, 1,300mile bike ride around Lake Superior. Benda, who has ties to the South Hills, will lead a Q&A after the film.

7 p.m. Wed., Aug. 31. SouthSide Works GOODFELLAS. Spend more time with The Family in Martin Scorsese’s 1990 drama, a searing, profanely funny account of real-life mobster (and FBI informant) Henry Hill. Starring Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci and Robert DeNiro, plus quite a few future Sopranos cast members. 7:30 p.m. Wed., Aug. 31. AMC Loews Waterfront. $5

THERE’S ANIMOSITY IN ANY CONTEST, BUT A GOOD RIVALRY Y REQUIRES MORE.

HAVING A BALL {BY ASHLEY MURRAY}

{CP ILLUSTRATION BY STEVE MUSGRAVE}

Sure, Bloomfield’s Little Italy Days festival isn’t exactly true to its name. There’s a wide array of non-Italian items for sale along Liberty Avenue; you can easily eat chicken fried rice or barbecue instead of pizza; and if you’re remodeling your home, there are even siding and gutter kiosks. But one event is undeniably indicative of the city’s Italian heritage — bocce ball on the temporary court set up on Cedarville Street.

This past weekend (Aug. 20-21), 12 teams faced off in a two-day doubleelimination tournament — teams with names like “Nonna’s Italian Army” and “Romano.” Team T-shirts said cheeky things like, “Grab your balls, it’s bocce time,” and a cigar-wielding scorekeeper yelled about the measuring tape. (This year’s winner was team “Yactown,” from Wheeling, W.Va.)

{CP PHOTO BY ASHLEY MURRAY}

Eugene Mariani, 102, of Bloomfield, still plays bocce.

“It’s just a good time. Everybody gets together, and usually there’s a little bit of wine involved,” says John Kotlowski, a 10-year veteran, whose team, “Bocce Mania,” lost two games on Saturday. “We EO SEE VID [usually] play

. at www er pap pghcitym .co

every Tuesday night around 6:30 under the Bloomfield Bridge.”

But Kotlowski’s 10 years are nothing compared to Bloomfield’s own Eugene Mariana, 102, who also plays on Tuesdays under the bridge, and sat courtside with his cane watching the tourney.

Mariani’s amateur bocce career began in Italy’s Abruzzi region, where he says he played in an open field. When asked to describe his years playing the game, Mariani said in his lingering Italian accent: “What’s to tell? It’s an old man’s game.”

“He’s one of the best bocce players we have, even at his age,” says his younger brother, Oreste Mariani, 87, who’s been playing bocce in Bloomfield for 22 years.

The hubris of Italian-ness was evident.

Dominic Piccola, of Bloomfield, whose team Liedertafel needed another win to stay in the contest, explained his team name: “[It’s] a German club, but all four of us playing are all Italian.”

Despite the strong cultural pride, the libations and laughter brought everyone on the Cedarville court together.

Says Piccola: “This is a very nice tournament where people young and old get together and try to match their skills.”

RIVAL REVIVAL {BY ALEX GORDON}

“E

AT SHIT, PITT.”

That was a recurring chant last weekend at a wedding in Morgantown, W.Va., where two Mountaineers were married on the West Virginia University campus in the company of their families, friends, the bride’s cousin’s boyfriend (me), a Catholic priest who mentioned the Steelers/Ravens rivalry in his homily, and a handwritten sign that read, “Pitt Still Sucks.”

I’m not exactly sure who the chants were for. My girlfriend and I are both Pitt grads, but aside from our diction and good manners, there’d be no way of knowing. We had no plans for a counter-rally. We were mostly interested in the free cheese.

Even if I were inclined, I’m probably not the best person to counter that “argument.”

I haven’t actively followed Pitt sports since the days of LeSean McCoy, and even then, I wasn’t telling people to eat shit.

Still, rivalries remain more interesting to me than the individual teams. I was born outside Boston and raised outside New York City. Wearing a Red Sox hat to school in

New York taught me all I needed to know about rivalries I didn’t care about. Ten-yearolds are vicious.

At my first college football game at Pitt — they played Notre Dame — my friends bought shirts that said “Rudy Sucks.” Years later, I admitted that I had no idea who Rudy was. I am kind of like the Sandlot’s Scotty Smalls in this way. Both Notre Dame and WVU qualify as rivals for Pitt, but Penn State easily takes the title of archrival.

Dating to 1893, Pitt/Penn State (or “PiPeSt”) was considered one of the premiere college-football rivalries until its hiatus in 2000 thanks to some bitterness involving Joe Paterno, the Big East and Wawa v. Sheetz (unconfirmed). Next month, Pitt and PSU meet at Heinz Field for the first time in more than 16 years. People are jacked up.

While I’m sure the reunion has boosted interest in the rivalry, the Pitt/Penn State relationship always felt one-sided. At that wedding, while eating the aforementioned free cheese and listening to the bros sing “Eat Shit Pitt!” over “Sweet Caroline” (twice),

I started to wonder how often rivalries like this feel unrequited. Declaring a rivalry with a bigger fish elevates the lesser team while helping them identify as underdogs.

Does Pitt consider WVU a main rival?

Probably not. Do Penn Staters think of Pitt as theirs? I doubt that, too. There’s animosity in any contest, but a good rivalry requires more.

Rivalries seem to be about having just enough in common — region, student body, focus — and enough discernible differences to create identities in contrast. Penn State as big, cultish, rural, self-contained; Pitt as urban, old, prestigious, immersive.

Today, these rivalries are closer to historical re-enactments than true battles. Maybe college rivalries are so ingrained because they offer a way for fans to inject some consistency into a sport that is otherwise constantly changing: Coaches come and go, athletes only last four years, stadiums change, conferences are juggled. But the rivalries, even the dormant and one-sided ones, remain.

The easiest way to hold onto a sport you love to is to focus on the team you hate.

AMURRAY@PGHCITYPAPER.COM

NEWS

+

A L E X G ORD ON @ P G HC I T Y PA P E R. C OM

MUSIC

+

ARTS

+

EVENTS

+

TASTE

+

SCREEN

+

SPORTS

+

CLASSIFIEDS

39

[THE CHEAP SEATS]

BRONZE WINNERS {BY MIKE WYSOCKI} THERE ARE VARIOUS ways of measuring

success. But if your achievements are so great that you get your own statue, that’s not just success — that’s a legacy. In Pittsburgh, our statue game is pretty solid. If a new study came out entitled, “Best Cities for Sports Statues,” we would not only be on it, but pretty close to the top. But even within our own statue community, there’s a hierarchy. Here’s my ranking for your perusal, and let the controversy begin! {CP PHOTO BY LISA CUNNINGHAM}

7. Honus Wagner. The most traveled

Susan Wagner’s Billl Mazeroski sculpture

of the statues is also the oldest. Unveiled in 1954, in Schenley Park, the Wagner has been moved to Three Rivers Stadium and now rests just outside PNC Park. It’s the one you see kids sitting on while they look at their phones before a game. A modest statue made before we made athletes bigger than life.

afternoon in October 1960. (The Maz was sculpted by local artist Susan Wagner, who also sculpted No. 3 and No. 1 on this list.)

6. Franco Harris.

Franco welcomes visitors from all over the world at the Pittsburgh International Airport. It’s odd in that it’s the only statue on the list that is painted. The piece depicts the exact moment when the fortunes of the Steelers organization changed forever. Number 32 is immortalized next to another superstar, George Washington. And while Washington might be the father of our nation, the Franco still outselfies our country’s first President at the airport.

3. Roberto Clemente.

The Clemente statue sits at the end of the bridge named after him, down the road from the museum dedicated to him. In fact, it’s not even the only statue of the Great One in the country; New York and New Jersey also have statues of him. Not to mention the high schools and middle schools, a state park and a stadium named after him. The statue, like him, is great and shows him heading to first base after one of his 3,000 hits.

IT’S THE ONE YOU SEE KIDS SITTING ON WHILE THEY LOOK AT THEIR PHONES BEFORE A GAME.

5. Art Rooney. The Chief

3.50

$

32 OZ LITE DRAFTS

3.00

$

20 OZ LITE DRAFTS

3.50

$

23 OZ LITE DRAFTS

sits right beside Heinz Field, on a bench.

The statue practically invites you to sit right next to it, as it conveys his renowned kindness. It’s also the only statue with a cigar in it. Rooney routinely received cigars as gifts from Frank Sinatra. That might even be better than a statue. If Cleveland ever put up a statue of its longtime owner Art Modell, it would be of him packing his suitcase and heading for Baltimore.

4. Bill Mazeroski. This tribute captures the elation of Maz the day he made the Yankees cry. The greatest moment in Pittsburgh sports, and perhaps, Major League Baseball history is immortalized in a 14foot, 2,000-pound piece of bronze. It’s a monument to giant-slayers everywhere.

They should add to the statue by putting in the fans who ran onto the field to round third base with him on that glorious

2. Mario Lemieux. The

grandest of them all, “Le Magnifique” is 10 feet tall, 13 feet wide, and weighs 4,700 pounds. It’s unique that even his statue shows him dominating other people: The two losers depicted getting burned by Mario are Rich Pilon and Jeff Norton of the New York Islanders. Those players are skating toward the past, when the Islanders won four Stanley Cups, while Mario is on his way to four cups — two as a player and two as owner.

1. Willie Stargell.

This is the best because it doesn’t show what Willie has done, it shows what he is about to do. Captain Willie is about to crush a fastball like the one he knocked completely out of Dodgers Stadium, or the one where he cracked a plastic seat in the upper deck of Veterans Stadium, in Philadelphia. After the wristwindmill batting routine, Willie would lean back slightly and wait to smash one of his 475 home runs. If you stand behind the statue at night, a street light from Downtown looks like a belt-high fastball he is about to destroy. Willie is the only one who could hit them into the cheap seats.

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

40

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 08.24/08.31.2016

COMMUNITY

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER

CLASSIFIEDS FOR INFORMATION ON HOW TO PLACE A CLASSIFIEDS ADVERTISEMENT, CALL 412-316-3342 EXT. 189 HELP WANTED

REHEARSAL

ADOPTION

WANTED! 36 PEOPLE

Rehearsal Space

A beautiful secure life, unconditional forever love awaits your newborn.

Kelly 800-554-4833 Exp. Pd.

to Lose Weight. 30-day money back guarantee.

Herbal Program. Also opportunity to earn up to $1,000 monthly. 1-800-492-4437 www.myherbalife.com

starting @ $150/mo.

Many sizes available, no sec deposit, play @ the original and largest practice facility, 24/7 access.

HELP WANTED

JET SKI RENTAL

PAID IN ADVANCE

JETSKILESSONS.COM TOURS • ALL WEATHER

Make $1000 a Week Mailing Brochures From Home. Helping home workers since 2001.

Genuine Opportunity.

No experience required.

Start immediately www.TheIncomeHub.com (AANCAN)

412-403-6069

SURF’S UP

SWISSVALE FARMERS MARKET

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

Saturdays 9 a.m. – 1 p.m.

through October 29 Dickson School – Rear 7301 Schoyer Ave.

www.swissvalefarmersmarket.org SNAP accepted

CHARGE NURSE RN/LPN $1,000

POLYGRAPH isyourgirlfriendcheating.com

AUTOS - WHOLESALE autosforchristians.com

SIGN ON BONUS

STORAGE

ABC SELF STORAGE 5x10 $45/mo.+tax.

10x10 $65/mo.+ tax 10x20 $110/mo.+tax.

(2) locations Mckees Rocks & South Side.

8 & 12 HOUR SHIFTS AVAILABLE

412-403-6069

ACROSS

SmokING STUDY

1. Weightlifting move 5. Day of the wk. the WSJ runs contest crosswords 8. Sitting around relaxing 14. Making the rounds 16. Peace agreement 17. 1985 Don DeLillo novel 18. Eavesdrop 19. Some sources of wool 20. Play time?

21. Incomprehensible span 24. Prepared fashionably 28. Truffaut’s “___ belle fille comme moi” 29. Busy women?

31. Cancel 33. Able-bodied 34. Hillary’s assistant 39. “Gotcha” 41. Untouched 42. Problem caused by a skipped period?

46. Actress Gretchen 47. Kate Moss’s modeling sister 48. Battle of the ___ (WWI conflict in France) 50. Sallie in the student loan biz 52. One-named New Age musician 54. Scottish Loch 55. Healing salves

University of Pittsburgh

Smokers of non-menthol cigarettes who want to try new cigarettes that may or may not lead to reduced smoking are wanted for a research study. This is NOT a treatment or smoking cessation study.

Compensation will be provided.

Evening Appointments Available Call the Nicotine & Tobacco Research Lab at

412-624-9999 for more information or visit www.PittsburghSmokeStudy.com

9850 OLD PERRY HIGHWAY WEXFORD, PA 15090 412-847-7145 Apply in person or online at www.communicarehealth.com/ employment

SMOKERS WANTED for Paid Psychology Research

to participate in a research project at Carnegie Mellon University!

To be eligible for this study, you must be: • 18-50 yrs. old • In good health • Willing to not smoke or use nicotine products before one session You may earn up to $85 for your participation in a 3 hour study.

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

NEWS

+

MUSIC

+

ARTS

+

EVENTS

+

TASTE

+

57. See 30-Down 59. Grille’s spot 61. Surfs, and a hint to the theme of this puzzle 65. One of the Judds 66. “The Restaurant at the End of the ___” 67. Brett Halliday shamus Michael 68. Sch. curriculum checker 69. Grammar Nazi’s line of attack, often

DOWN 1. Mooer 2. Durham sch.

3. Upstate NY engineering sch.

4. Present but hidden 5. Completely burnt out 6. “Semiramide” composer 7. Strasbourg’s Grande ___ 8. City where the Sex Pistols made their U.S. debut: Abbr.

9. “Divergent” heroine 10. 1977 Disney flick about mice, with The 11. Threw back 12. He gave us “Goosebumps” 13. Emmywinner Daly 15. Pulling job 21. “But ___ me, give me liberty...”

SCREEN

+

22. Statesman Root 23. ___ the open (uncovered) 25. Room with a bar, maybe 26. Sheepskin boot 27. Stampede cause 30. 57-Across taker 32. Writer’s approaches 35. Having zing 36. “I want it!”

37. Teeny bits 38. Tree-buying times 40. In a grave way 43. Guess affected by weather: Abbr.

44. Trent Reznor’s band on t-shirts 45. Neil of the Pet Shop Boys

SPORTS

49. About 45 minutes for a band, say 50. Egret’s home 51. Coming and going word 53. Ancient Greek region with a column style named after it 55. Degs. for musicians 56. British shooter 58. France’s high-speed train 60. White out fluid?

61. Marching word 62. Attempt 63. It can help you see what others are thinking 64. Prefix with colonialism {LAST WEEK’S ANSWERS}

+

CLASSIFIEDS

41

NOW HIRING! We are looking for someone to join our Sales Team that wants to sell Print, Web and Digital.

IS THIS YOU? Sales knowledge is a plus.

EMAIL RESUMES TO: jbrock@pghcitypaper.com No phone calls please.

Pittsburgh City Paper is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

NOTICES

CITIZEN POLICE REVIEW BOARD

PUBLIC HEARING NOTICE CPRB Case #223-15 Thursday, 9/1/16 @ 6:00 PM

CITY COUNCIL CHAMBERS City-County Building, 5th FL 414 Grant Street Pittsburgh, PA 15219 (Ross Street Entrance)

FINANCIAL

MASSAGE

Are you in BIG trouble with the IRS? Stop wage & bank levies, liens & audits, unfiled tax returns, payroll issues, & resolve tax debt FAST Call 844-753-1317

Downtown

(AAN CAN)

CPRB PITTSBURGH

Table Shower

ROOMMATES

HEALTH SERVICES

ALL AREAS ROOMMATES.COM. Lonely?

Bored? Broke? Find the perfect roommate to complement your personality and lifestyle at Roommates. com! (AAN CAN)

CARPAL TUNNEL TREATMENT Amazing!

52 Pills for Only $99.00 Your #1 trusted provider for 10 years.

Insured and Guaranteed Delivery. Call Today 1-888-403-9028

NEW RATE SCALE BASED ON LICENSURE

• Paid Vacation and Sick Time • Medical, Dental, Vision, Paid Life Insurance • Disability Insurance • 401k • Paid Holiday • Every other weekend off

9850 OLD PERRY HIGHWAY, WEXFORD, PA 15090 | 412-847-7145 Apply in person or online at www.communicarehealth.com/employment PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 08.24/08.31.2016

9:30am-11pm

ANNOUNCEMENTS

VIAGRA

HEALTHY Massage

322 Fourth Ave.

CASH FOR CARS: Any Car/ Truck 2000-2015, Running or Not! Top Dollar for Used/ Damaged. Free Nationwide Towing! Call Now 1-888-420-3808 (AAN CAN)

STARTING RATES $15

42

412-401-4110

FINANCIAL

CNA Our dynamic and supportive working environment offers a family-friendly atmosphere and excellent benefits package for full time associates which includes:

Open 24 hours

$$Get Cash Now$$ Call 888-822-4594. J.G. Wentworth can give you cash now for your future Structured Settlement and Annuity Payments. (AAN CAN)

MENS HEALTH

Questions may be directed to (412) 765-8023.

$40/hour

MASSAGE

724-742-3333 20550 Rt. 19 Unit 7 Cranberry Twsp, Pa 16066

TIGER SPA

GRAND OPENING!!!

Best of the Best in Town!

420 W. Market St., Warren, OH 44481 76 West, 11 North, 82 West to Market St. 6 lights and make a left.

1/4 mile on the left hand side.

Scientific subtleenergy protocol can reduce or ELIMINATE carpal tunnel.

Not a gimmick, proven technology.

Try this before surgery!

Open 9am-12 midnight 7 days a week!

Licensed Professionals Dry Sauna, Table Shower, Deep Tissue, Swedish

412-657-3033

Credit Cards Accepted

330-373-0303

JADE Wellness Center

Premier Outpatient Drug and Alcohol Treatment LOCATIONS IN MONROEVILLE AND WEXFORD, PA

SUBOXONE TREATMENT WE SPECIALIZE IN

Family Owned and Operated Treating: Alcohol, Opiates, Heroin and More

Painkiller and Heroin Addiction Treatment

• SUBOXONE • VIVITROL - a new once a month injection for alcohol and opiate dependency • Group and Individualized Therapy

IMMEDIATE APPOINTMENTS AVAILABLE

NO WAIT LIST

Pregnant?

Accepts all major insurances and medical assistance

CALL NOW TO SCHEDULE

412-380-0100 www.myjadewellness.com

We can treat you!

Start taking your life back • INSURANCES ACCEPTED • DAY & EVENING APPOINTMENTS AVAILABLE CLOSE TO SOUTH HILLS, WASHINGTON, CANONSBURG, CARNEGIE, AND BRIDGEVILLE

Brand-new facility providing medication assisted treatment:

Suboxone, Vivitrol, personalized detox.

Let Us Help You Today!

Premier. Private. Affordable.

Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh • South Hills

Immediate Openings Call today 412-668-4444

Beaver County

Methadone • 412-255-8717 Methadone • 412-488-6360 Methadone • 724-857-9640 Suboxone • 412-281-1521 info2@alliancemedical.biz Suboxone • 724-448-9116 info@summitmedical.biz info@ptsa.biz NEWS

+

MUSIC

+

ARTS

+

EVENTS

5855 Steubenville Pike Robinson Twp., PA 15136 journeyhealthcare.com +

TASTE

+

SCREEN

412-221-1091 info@freedomtreatment.com

+

SPORTS

+

CLASSIFIEDS

43

FOR THE WEEK OF

Free Will Astrology

08.24-08.31

{BY ROB BREZSNY}

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Suggested experiments: 1. Take a vow that from now on you won’t hide your beauty. 2. Strike a deal with your inner king or inner queen, guaranteeing that this regal part of you gets regular free expression. 3. Converse with your Future Self about how the two of you might collaborate to fully unleash the refined potency of your emotional intelligence. 4. In meditations and dreams, ask your ancestors how you can more completely access and activate your dormant potentials.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): I hope you are not forlorn, shivery, puzzled or obsessive right now — unless being in such a state will mobilize you to instigate the overdue transformations you have been evading. If that’s the case, I hope you are forlorn, shivery, puzzled and obsessive. Feelings like those may be the perfect fuel — the high-octane motivation that will launch your personal renaissance. I don’t often offer this counsel, Libra, so I advise you to take full advantage: Now is one of the rare times when your so-called negative emotions can catalyze redemption.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): From what I can tell, your vigor is peaking. In recent weeks, you have been sturdy, hearty, stout and substantial. I expect this surge of strength to intensify in the near future — even as it becomes more fluid and supple. In fact, I expect that your waxing power will teach you new secrets about how to wield your power intelligently. You may break your previous records for compassionate courage and sensitive toughness. Here’s the best

news of all: You’re likely to be dynamic about bestowing practical love on the people and animals and things that are important to you.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): The odds are higher than usual that you will be offered a boost or promotion in the coming weeks. This development is especially likely to occur in the job you’re doing or the career plans you’ve been pursuing. It could also be a factor at work in your spiritual life. You may discover a new teacher or teaching that could lift you to the next phase of your inner quest. There’s even a chance that you’ll get an upgrade on both fronts. So it’s probably a good time to check on whether you’re harboring any obstacles to success. If you find that you are, DESTROY THOSE RANCID OLD MENTAL BLOCKS WITH A BOLT OF PSYCHIC LIGHTNING.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): The cosmos seems to be warming up to your charms. The stinginess it displayed toward you for a while is giving way to a more generous

get your yoga on! schoolhouseyoga.com gentle yoga yoga levels 1, 2 ashtanga yoga meditation

yin yoga prenatal yoga mommy & me yoga for kids

approach. To take advantage of this welcome development, you should shed any fear-based beliefs you may have adopted during the recent shrinkage. For instance, it’s possible you’ve begun to entertain the theory that the game of life is rigged against you, or that it is inherently hard to play. Get rid of those ideas. They’re not true, and clinging to them would limit the game of life’s power to bring you new invitations. Open yourself up wherever you have closed down.

Are any of your allies acting like they’ve forgotten their true purpose? If so, you have the power to gently awaken them from their trances and help them re-focus. Is it possible you have become a bit too susceptible to the influences of people whose opinions shouldn’t really matter that much to you? If so, now is a good time to correct that aberration. Are you aware of having fallen under the sway of trendy ideas or faddish emotions that are distorting your relationship with your primal sources? If so, you are hereby authorized to free yourself from their hold on you.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):

CANCER (June 21-July 22):

Now would be a favorable time to reveal that you are in fact a gay socialist witch who believes good poetry provides a more reliable way to understand reality than the opinions of media pundits — unless, of course, you are not a gay socialist witch, etc., in which case you shouldn’t say you are. But I do advise you to consider disclosing as much as possible of your true nature to anyone with whom you plan to be intimately linked in the future and who is missing important information about you. It’s high time to experiment with being more completely yourself.

It’ll be one of those rapid-fire, adjust-on-the-fly, think-on-your-feet, go-with-your-gut times for you — a head-spinning, endorphin-generating, eye-pleasing, intelligence-boosting phase when you will have opportunities to relinquish your attachments to status quos that don’t serve you.

Got all that, Cancerian? There’ll be a lot of stimuli to absorb and integrate — and luckily for you, absorbing and integrating a lot of stimuli will be your specialty. I’m confident of your ability to get the most of upcoming encounters with cute provocations, pleasant agitation and useful unpredictability. One more tip: Be vigilant and amused as you follow the ever-shifting sweet spot.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):

ARIES (March 21-April 19): In the coming weeks, I hope you won’t scream curses at the rain, demanding that it stop falling on you. Similarly, I suggest you refrain from punching walls that seem to be hemming you in, and I beg you not to spit into the wind when it’s blowing in your face. Here’s an oracle about how to avoid counterproductive behavior like that: The near future will bring you useful challenges and uncanny blessings if you’re willing to consider the possibility that everything coming your way will in some sense be an opportunity.

Oh how I wish you might receive the grace of being pampered and nurtured and entertained and prayed for. I’d love for you to assemble a throng of no-strings-attached caretakers who would devote themselves to stoking your healing and delight. Maybe they’d sing to you as they gave you a manicure and massaged your feet and paid your bills. Or perhaps they would cook you a gourmet meal and clean your house as they told you stories about how beautiful you are and all

44

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 08.24/08.31.2016

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): I invite you to dream about your true home … your sweet, energizing, love-strong home … the home where you can be high and deep, robust and tender, flexible and rigorous … the home where you are the person that you promised yourself you could be. To stimulate and enhance your brainstorms about your true home, experiment with the following activities: Feed your roots … do maintenance work on your power spot … cherish and foster your sources … and refine the magic that makes you feel free. Can you handle one more set of tasks designed to enhance your domestic bliss? Tend to your web of close allies … take care of what takes care of you … and adore the intimate connections that serve as your foundation.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20):

east liberty squirrel hill north hills

the great things you’re going to do in the future.

Is it possible to arrange something like that even on a modest scale, Taurus? You’re in a phase of your astrological cycle when you most need this kind of doting attention — and when you have the greatest power to make it happen.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): At the risk of asking too much and pushing too hard, my Guerrilla Prayer Warriors have been begging God to send you some major financial mojo. These fierce supplicants have even gone so far as to suggest to the Supreme Being that maybe She could help you win the lottery or find a roll of big bills lying in the gutter or be granted a magic wish by an unexpected benefactor.

“Whatever works!” is their mantra. Looking at the astrological omens, I’m not sure that the Prayer Warriors’ extreme attempts will be effective. But the possibility that they will be is definitely greater than usual. To boost your odds, I suggest you get more organized and better educated about your money matters. Set a clear intention about the changes you’d like to put in motion during the next 10 months.

What would the people who love you best say is the most important thing for you to learn? Testify at Truthrooster@gmail.com.

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

Savage Love {BY DAN SAVAGE}

DEAR READERS: This is the final week of my summer vacation — but you’ve been getting a new column every week I’ve been gone, all of them written by Dan Savage, none of them written by me.

Our final guest Dan Savage is an independent designer, illustrator and animation director based in Brooklyn, N.Y. He created Yule Log 2.0 (watchyulelog.com), a collaborative art project where animators around the world re-imagine the famous Yule-log fireplace. He has worked with The New York Times and Google, and he’s taught design and animation at NYU and won a bunch of designindustry awards.

“I was excited to do this, even though I have no authority on the topic,” said Daniel Savage, award-winning independent designer.

“But I surprisingly felt pretty confident in my answers, as ridiculous as they may be.”

I’m a 41-year-old straight woman who stayed a virgin way longer than I should have (thank you, church and cultural slutshaming). I wasn’t 100 percent “good,” i.e., I was one of those “not PIV = not really sex” girls, so I indulged in outercourse and other “cheats.” When I finally realized that “not until marriage” wasn’t working for me and did the real thing, I discovered I loved it. Go me, right? Unfortunately, I’m not good at dating, so I usually go a long time between relationships.

The relationship I’m in now is the first one I’ve had in two years.“Guy” is nice to me — calls me beautiful, sticks up for me, comes to watch me play with a community orchestra (my own family and friends don’t even come to my shows).

But we don’t have much in common (hobbies, political outlook, religious beliefs), and sometimes our conversations feel labored. But that’s OK, right? At least I’m getting my sexual needs met, right? Well, no. Every single time we’ve tried to have sex, Guy either can’t get hard or stays hard for only a few minutes. I’ve tried going down on him, using my hands, different positions — nothing works. He’s never had an orgasm with me. We don’t even kiss that much. I don’t say anything because I don’t want to hurt his feelings and because I’m really grateful to him for wanting to be with me and being nice to me. He says sorry and that he’s asked the doctor about it, but we don’t get anywhere. It feels lonelier than when I was single. To be blunt, I don’t want to date him anymore. But I feel too guilty to break up with him. He really cares about me, and he didn’t do anything wrong. We’ve dated for four months, and I don’t know if I’m giving up too soon.

Where would I be if previous boyfriends had ditched me for being inexperienced instead of showing me the ropes? Don’t I owe Guy the same thing?

common can be OK if you create new hobbies and experiences you can share. Having said that, four months is plenty of time to know whether it’s working. He sounds super boring. The sooner you break it off with him the better. You don’t want to hurt him any more than you have to, especially if he’s really into you, and the longer you draw it out, the more it’s going to hurt. No amount of “training” is going to get this dude hard. The only rope being shown here is his flaccid ding-dong. It doesn’t seem like you’d even want to be his friend if you broke up.

I wouldn’t feel guilty at all about dumping him. Sometimes you gotta think about No. 1.

blogh.pghcitypaper.com

Clicking “reload” makes the workday go faster

I’ve always enjoyed reading your column — maybe I just get turned on by other people’s sexual endeavors, or maybe reading about other people’s sexual frustrations makes my situation seem better in comparison. So what am I writing about? When does one just become blatantly ungrateful? I’ve been in a two-year mixed relationship (she’s Native and 24, I’m white and 29), and we fight a lot. She cheated on me a couple times early in the relationship. She says I pressured her into getting into a relationship when she wasn’t ready to “settle down,” which I suppose I could see.

My problem is I have a hand-job fetish and my girlfriend has a disinterest in it, to the point where she just won’t do it. But why am I bitching?

I get laid every day for the most part, surprise blowjobs, 69ing, you name it.

Should I accept this as fate? But just this morning, we went for round two, and I was having a hard time coming, and out of nowhere she pops up and jerks me off till climax. It really took me back.

Would it be bad to fake having coming issues in hopes she does it again? Is that unfair?

“IT DOESN’T SEEM LIKE YOU’D EVEN WANT TO BE HIS FRIEND IF YOU BROKE UP.”

TUGBOAT CAPTAIN

It’s interesting that your problem isn’t the fact that she cheated on you, TG, or the relationship problems, or the constant fighting. No, it’s the lack of hand-job enthusiasm. Honestly, man, it seems like you have much deeper issues here — but the hand-job problem is the only concrete thing you point to?

The girlfriend you’ve got sounds super selfish, and finding a new girl — one who wouldn’t cheat on you and would be excited to jump into a relationship AND be down with a little tug — isn’t going to be that difficult of a task. I mean, your fetish seems like it’s an easy one to explore.

But to answer your actual question: I would go ahead and fake it. Fuck it, lie to her.

It seems like she has no issues lying to you!

TOO DOWN TO BE WITTY

Follow Daniel Savage on Twitter at @somethingsavage and visit his website at somethingsavage.com.

First off, I think a long time between relationships is good. I also think not having things in

On the Lovecast, a special guest rant by writer Sherman Alexie: savagelovecast.com.

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

NEWS

+

MUSIC

+

ARTS

+

EVENTS

+

TASTE

+

SCREEN

+

SPORTS

+

CLASSIFIEDS

45

THIS JUST IN {BY FRANCIS RUPP}

A look at local news online and on the tube

SINK YOUR TEETH INTO THIS! KDKA’s news show reports on its Facebook page that the Bridgeville Police Department has in its possession one full set of false teeth. The teeth were discovered in Triangle Park. KDKA points out the “best of the best” tooth puns from the comments section of Bridgeville Police Department’s own Facebook page: “Were they found around tooth-hurty?” “Stop making fun of the poor toothless person running around Bridgeville, oral-b [sic] mad!” “The person who finds the owner will win a little plaque for their efforts.”

Now this is what the comments section was meant for, people.

BUT TRY NOT TO SINK YOUR CAR! In more serious KDKA news, and in light of recent heavy downpours, Lynn HayesFreeland reports that the Washington Boulevard flood-gate system, designed to alert drivers to rising waters, is broken, after being damaged by an automobile.

Four people were killed there when they were trapped inside their cars by floodwaters in August 2011. PennDOT paid more than $400,000 for a system designed to prevent drivers from entering the danger zone. If it took a single car to wreck the safety system, one has to ask: How good was it in the first place?

Hayes highlights a familiar bureaucratic trope — responsibility-bouncing.

“A spokesperson for the city acknowledged the gate was knocked down by a car and has not been repaired. PennDOT installed the gate, but says it’s not responsible for maintaining it. The city says the gates are still run by the state. So the broken gate now just sits,” she reported, adding, “The city does intend to take them over eventually, but beforehand is going to contract with the firm that built the gates to study their operability and fix any outstanding problems.” Police continue to block the intersection during rainstorms, but there is no timelime to repair the gate.

Let’s hope Lynn continues to follow the story. I think many of us would like to know how one car can ruin a $400,000 system.

THE RED SHEET The Green Sheet, published by Hammond Newspapers in Millvale, with the catchy phrase — “You buy a newspaper to read — you read the Green Sheet to buy” — also publishes stories. And I’m here to tell you, you don’t know what you’re missing. Last week, in a column entitled, “Report to the People,” anti-gay, conservative syndicated columnist Cal Thomas opines on “the heart of liberalism.”

“Little consideration is given to whether a [government] program or idea will accomplish its stated goal, only intentions matter,” writes Thomas, referencing PBS’s The American Experience, a longtime series which covers historical events. He compares a recently rebroadcast episode — which profiled President Lyndon B. Johnson, the man who signed legislation upholding critical things like Medicaid, civil rights and public broadcasting — to the current presidential race, all in an effort to bash Hillary Clinton.

Bridgeville Police Department’s photo of false teeth as seen on KDKA’s Facebook page and website

Who knew that the innocuous little free paper you pick up to look for a secondhand fridge to store meat in your basement over winter was really a cover for conservative content?

Thanks, Obama.

DON’T READ THE COMMENTS! Speaking of LBJ’s public-broadcasting legislation, last week NPR announced that users will no longer be able to comment on its website stories. “After much experimentation and discussion, we’ve concluded that the comment sections on NPR.org stories are not providing a useful experience for the vast majority of our users,” said NPR’s Scott Montgomery, managing editor for digital news.

At press time, local NPR affiliate WESA’s interim news director, ironically (or maybe not), did not return a request for comment.

NEWSTASTIC! (RIP?) Remember when I wrote about NewsCastic back in September 2015? The Albuquerque, N.M.-based media group distributes “news” almost exclusively through social media. Its lofty mission included “redefining the economics of local news.” Unfortunately, while the Albuquerque site has a recent entry, it looks like other cities where NewsCastic has satellites — Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C., Salt Lake City, Minneapolis and Sacramento — are also losing traction.

Upgruv.com, a similarly modeled news source, doesn’t seem to be faring so well, either. Editor Jim Kubus (who’s also deputy managing editor of the Pittsburgh TribuneReview, whose affiliate 535 Media owns Upgruv) originally declared that Upgruv planned to grow the site through Facebook and Twitter. But Upgruv has a paltry 1,650 “likes” on its Facebook page and about 1,174 Twitter followers after six months.

Upgruv promised us “snarky,” “unguarded” and even “racy” reporting when it launched in March, but it’s failed on all accounts. Even on the “reporting,” since it’s basically an aggregator. The raciest news I found of late was about Primanti’s offering delivery, quoting WPXI as the source. If this is the new definition of local-news reporting, we may want to get another dictionary.

INFO@PGHCITYPAPER.COM

46

PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 08.24/08.31.2016

A and R Bridge Health

into wellness

Presents

Straight 8 Exciting new recovery! recovery options by experienced caring physicians!

SUBOXONE SUBUTEX

Recovery programs created BY women for women!

Finally a recovery program for every budget!

Let us help you!

WE TREAT: Opiate Addiction Heroin Addiction & Other Drug Addictions

Programs start at $60

Call today 412-434-6700

Plans t start a 0 $125.0

and get scheduled

Please check out our website and see if one of our area locations works for you!

Suboxone, Subutex

Call today at 1-888-207-4163 or check out our website

A and R Health Services Pittsburgh, Pa

www.sunriserecoverycenter.org

www.suboxonehelps.org

NEWS

Suboxone Treatment, Subutex Medication

+

MUSIC

+

ARTS

+

EVENTS

Bridge Wellness Center Punxsutawney, Pa

Serving Western Pennsylvania

Call 1-888-895-2154 to schedule your appointment today!

1-800-817-4053 www.aandrsolutions.com

www.bridgeintowellness.com

+

TASTE

+

SCREEN

+

SPORTS

+

CLASSIFIEDS

47

THIS FALL, GET READY FOR A BROWVENTURE!

FIRST WAX FREE*

European Wax Center Coming Soon to Murrysville Go to waxcenter.com/pa-murrysville to get invited to Preview Week

*May be redeemed only by first-time guests. Guests must reside in state where redeemed. Not valid for all services. Additional restrictions may apply. Visit waxcenter.com for complete terms and conditions. © 2016 EWC