Articles Archive - Page 21 of 161 - Pittsburgh Quarterly

Theatrical advertising today tends to overpromise and underdeliver: old classics are repackaged in the wrappings of contemporary mores, new works are compared to old classics, and hype is so prevalent in promotional campaigns that the laconic nature of Barebones Productions’ marketing for “The Sound Inside” (2018) made me really pay attention. It did not tout …

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Arts

Smells Like Dane Spirit

by Stuart Sheppard

In a review of a Shakespeare production several years ago I argued that, as a general rule, it has proven easier to do Shakespeare new rather than well, but with Quantum Theatre’s current production of “Hamlet,” director Jeffrey Carpenter has demonstrated that it’s possible to do both. The challenge with this play — arguably the …

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Creative Capital

The Flinty Vermonter

by Greg Curtis

I had left the repair of the Trombley barn’s floor for last because it seemed as if it would be the simplest part of the job. I was way wrong. More of the joists were rotten than I had anticipated, and the work mostly had to be done while standing in the barn’s disgusting basement. …

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Creative Capital

The Hole that Swallowed Eddie

by Greg Curtis

The VA kids and I had returned to the Trombley barn to finish painting it, except that the first coat we’d put on two weeks earlier had completely disappeared, soaking into the old wood as if it’d never been applied. Previously in this series: The Charm OffensiveWhen I reported this catastrophe to Rich, he looked …

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People Profiles

Pittsburgh’s Frank Gorshin was the Original Riddler

by Clayton Trutor

Frank Gorshin was famous for the many faces he wore. On the Ed Sullivan Show, the master impressionist emulated the likes of Kirk Douglas, Marlon Brando, and Burt Lancaster with uncanny precision, contorting his malleable face and lithe, sinewy body to actually look like, and not just sound like, the people he portrayed. Crowds packed …

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Creative Capital

The Charm Offensive

by Greg Curtis

As I’ve mentioned, pretty much everyone in the Northeast Kingdom hated VA. But according to Rich Bolotin, who ran VA, this was no more than a minor misunderstanding – a little re-education would turn these folks around in no time. Previously in this series:MomSpecifically, Rich’s idea was that the kids at VA would perform a …

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Arrivals People

Fisher, Gabel, Phillips, Fajobi, Nemec

by PQ Staff

Patrick Fisher is the CEO of the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, following the resignation of Mitch Swain last summer. Most recently, Fisher served as executive director of Erie Arts & Culture for five years, where he was credited with championing artists and boosting the city’s arts community. He established an artist residency program paired with local industry, …

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Nature

One Lone Bat

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

I never noticed so many ash trees in the forest until hundreds toppled over. The drumming of the ruffed grouse is dearer to me now because of its absence. But of all the things on the farm that have revealed themselves by passing away, none is more striking than the decline of bats. Thirty-five years …

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Books

The Allman Brothers Band – and Me

by Alan Paul

The road may go on forever, but it began in my brother’s bedroom on Inverness Avenue, where he handed me a copy of the Allman Brothers Band’s Eat A Peach and told me to listen to it, when I was in seventh grade. I put on some headphones, lay down on the yellow shag carpet, …

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Creative Capital

Mom

by Greg Curtis

More of my experiences at my summer job at VA, a halfway house for juvenile delinquents in Stilton, Vermont. I forgot to mention that everybody in the Northeast Kingdom hated VA. When I first started, Meg had said to me, “The dopes up here think the girls are going to seduce their sons and the …

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People

What Do I Know? Carol Brown

by Jeff Sewald

I was born in Columbus, Ohio. my father was the youngest of 10 children from an immigrant German family, and my mother hailed from a family of Irish immigrants. They fell in love very young and decided to get married, even though their parents did not approve. My mom was an amateur artist, and a …

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Books

Donora Death Fog: Clean Air and the Tragedy of a Pennsylvania Mill Town

by Fred Shaw

Amid outcry over the recent train derailment and subsequent leak of vinyl chloride in nearby East Palestine, Ohio, and environmental rights groups’ concerns about emissions from Shell’s ethylene cracker plant in Beaver County, dialogue over the balancing act between commerce and public health continues. In his well-researched new book, Donora Death Fog: Clean Air and …

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Creative Capital

Losing It…

by Greg Curtis

Although Meg Petronius had warned me that working at VA was no walk in the park, I found it pretty much to be a walk in the park. Maybe that was because I was a teenager myself. I was nineteen and not much older than the kids, and most of the things that interested them …

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Books

Pittsburgh’s Orphans and Orphanages

by Joann Cantrell

For as long as I can remember, every time my grandmother spoke of her childhood, it made me sad. Margaret Schall, affectionately known as “Tootie,” was raised in the Odd Fellows Home for Orphans on the North Side of Pittsburgh from 1920 until 1933. She was an orphan of circumstance, rather than by the death …

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People

The International Poetry Forum Is Making a Comeback

by Douglas Heuck

Started in 1966 by poet and Duquesne University Professor Sam Hazo, the International Poetry Forum had a remarkable run of 43 years, bringing the best poets in the world to Pittsburgh, as well as some of the biggest names of stage and screen. Hazo wound up operations in 2009, never expecting a renewal until he …

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Regional News

Latin American Cultural Center Opens in Oakland

by Julia Fraser

A woman spins a crisp white thread, a vermillion sky rises over water and doves hover in Paula Nicho Cúmez’s painting, “Process and Vision of the Peace Accords.” She composed the painting in the wake of the 1996 Peace Accords in Guatemala, which brought an end to the country’s 36-year civil war. “The only thing …

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Creative Capital

Meeting Miss Perfect

by Greg Curtis

I’d just come face-to-face with The Most Perfect Girl in the World and I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Oh, sure, The Most Perfect Girl in the World just happened to be hanging out in Stilton, Vermont, population 124.” Previously in this series: Surprise, Surprise…Allow me to explain. You see, every guy has his …

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Nature

Forever Chemicals

by Deborah Weisberg

In March, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed the first-ever national drinking water standard to limit six chemicals whose potential health effects are raising red flags. They are part of a family of about 9,000 per- and polyfluoroalkyl compounds — collectively known as PFAS — that are used to impart water-, oil-, grease-, stain-, and heat-resistant …

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History

Ye Olde Parking Meter?

by John Beale

Municipalities struggle with parking. Some have eliminated parking meters. Pittsburgh, Sewickley, Mt. Lebanon, and Carnegie have installed kiosks instead. The time for parking meters hasn’t expired, but in many communities, you’ll no longer need coins. In Pittsburgh, Greensburg, Dormont, McKeesport, and others, meters still exist, but thanks to the innovative Pittsburgh-based app company MeterFeeder, payments …

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Birds

Listen for the Song of the Wood Thrush

by David Liebmann

The wood thrush sings a haunting song, “Ee-oh-lay.” Just three syllables, it’s a brief, ethereal mix of bouncing notes and plaintive, romantic flutings. I have heard the males sing from brushy patches of suburban scrub in the late spring and from deep in the summer woods. Their notes are almost elven, with something beckoning and …

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Creative Capital

Surprise, Surprise…

by Greg Curtis

The lady at the artists’ colony had told me, just before slamming the door in my face, that Vermont Academy was the “next house.” I looked up that way but didn’t see a next house. Previously in this series: VAI sighed, climbed back on the Vespa and headed north. Almost immediately the next house came …

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Sports

Have a Duke: Baseball and Beer

by Richard “Pete” Peterson

While baseball fans are happy with the pitch clock because it has, on average, cut 30 minutes off this season’s games, there has been an unanticipated problem. If fans are spending less time at the ballpark, they’re consuming less food and drink. Major league teams have been particularly concerned about the declining consumption of beer. …

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