Articles Archive - Page 70 of 161 - Pittsburgh Quarterly

If all politics is local, perhaps all good poetry might be considered local, as well. Consider how setting and description flavor the Homestead poems of Robert Gibb and the Detroit poems of Jim Daniels. In his seminal essay collection on poetic craft, “The Triggering Town,” poet Richard Hugo asks writers to ground their work, saying …

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Sports

Moment in the Sun

by Steve Schlossman

One hundred years ago, Pittsburgh native son S. Davidson Herron defied expectations that rising young superstar Bobby Jones was too much for him and won the prestigious National Amateur championship at Oakmont Country Club, shocking the golf world in the process. The 1919 National Amateur was the first since 1916 due to World War I. …

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Region

A Slow But Continuing Decline

by Jeffery Fraser

Gavriel Popper-Keizer was living in sun-swept Santa Barbara when he decided to leave coastal California, where he’d spent most of his life. His girlfriend, Alison, also a lifelong Californian, was on board. The sense of adventure was appealing. Neither had a dream job they would regret leaving. And they had come to grips with the …

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Nature

The Price of Nature’s Beauty

by Julia Fraser

Second in a three-part series: Even modest exploration of Pennsylvania’s state parks and forests reveals their gifts: hidden waterfalls that appear along hiking trails, imposing rock formations bolted with anchors for climbing, lakes created by dams for swimming and boating on warm summer days, and rivers and streams stocked with fish for the catching. Some …

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Creative Capital

Is Coronary Bypass Surgery Obsolete?

by Greg Curtis

“You will die with exactly the same heart muscle cells you came out of the womb with.” —Consulting cardiologist, speaking to Your Humble Blogger Having recently experienced the gruesome-car-crash known as coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery, I was naturally wondering why, instead of doing its best to kill an already very fragile patient, medical …

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Health

What is Cross-Training, Anyway?

by Joseph A. Luxbacher

Question: “Can you explain what is meant by “cross-training”? I see it advertised at my health club. Is it a special kind of workout program?” Many people, myself included, often fall into the routine of performing the same workout regimen day after day, week after week. This is not necessarily a good practice because by …

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Opinion

Lost and Found

by Douglas Heuck

Some days are memorable for obvious reasons: births, deaths, weddings and funerals. Occasionally, however, a day is noteworthy not for any dramatic event but for what you suddenly understand. For 58 summers in a row, I’ve gone to a little town in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula called Cedarville. What has turned out, in retrospect, to be …

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Regional News

Job Growth Stalls

by Julia Fraser

Employers in southwestern Pennsylvania hit the brakes on job creation in the region last month. The seven-county Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area added only 800 jobs from July 2018 and July 2019—a 0.1 percent year-over-year increase, according to new data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. It is the lowest growth rate among Pittsburgh Today’s …

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Spotlight

State’s Innovation Economy Needs a Boost to Compete

by Julia Fraser

Southwestern Pennsylvania’s innovation economy, bolstered by its major research universities, is brimming with potential. But the region and Pennsylvania has its work cut out for them if they want to compete with the likes of San Francisco, Boston and emerging stars, such as Austin, Texas. And realizing that potential begins with a statewide plan and …

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History

50 Years Ago at Woodstock

by George Pettrone

I was a skinny 20-year-old in August of 1969. My Woodstock Fever started on Monday of that week in Rochester, N.Y. I was working at St. Joe Paper Company, catching future cardboard boxes as they rolled off the corrugator. On the way home, I heard a radio ad for a three-day music festival. The ad …

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Creative Capital

The Amazing Human Heart

by Greg Curtis

“Do-it-yourself cardiac bypass surgery: All you need is walking shoes.” —Harvard Medical School Doctors have believed forever that the human heart is so fragile and helpless that it can’t heal itself. The heart can only be improved after a heart attack, they believe, by putting the hapless patient through a car crash—excuse me, coronary artery …

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American Spirit

Dwight Sells Worms

by Kate Benz

The worm truck just arrived. “You know, bait,” Dwight said. “I just got 500 Canadian night crawlers.” The worm truck came from a wholesaler in Ohio that gets the Canadian night crawlers from a guy up in Canada, who everyone knows is a legit Canadian. “Because he said ‘eh’ a lot,” Dwight said. From 7 …

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Food & Wine

The Gentle Maven of Burgundy

by Dave DeSimone

It’s fashionable to stereotype Burgundy wines as overly complicated and too expensive. Becky Wasserman-Hone simply doesn’t buy it. She has heard it all before over her forty-year career as an expatriate-American working as an export-wine broker in Burgundy, but she refuses to let it derail her dedicated promotion of the wines and growers of her …

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PQ Poem

80’s Body Shop Elegy

by Jimmie Cumbie

We kept the radio on all day long. The news came on at noon. Reagan, Nicaragua, Iran. Tommy brushed his fingertips over the freshly primed fender of another rust-bucket Monte Carlo, feeling for waves, bows, any imperfections in the once rotted places he’d filled and shaped with fiberglass resin. Next door, the whitewashed Lighthouse Salvation …

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Creative Capital

The Heart Can’t Heal—or Can It?

by Greg Curtis

Having a heart attack was like having an elephant jump on my chest and sit there for six hours, then wander off into the night as though nothing had happened. Having sextuple CABG surgery was like being in a really bad car crash. As between the two, if you ask me, there isn’t much to …

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Arts

Breaking New Ground in the Pittsburgh Art World

by Vicky A Clark

Fiberart International 2019 is up through August 24, 2019 at Brew House Association and Contemporary Craft. [ngg src=”galleries” ids=”329″ display=”basic_thumbnail” thumbnail_crop=”0″] “How did a small group of Pittsburgh housewives practicing the dainty craft of hand embroidery give birth to the rowdy, sophisticated, benchmark triennial we know as ‘Fiberart International?’” The answer to this rather cheeky …

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Health

Detraining: How to Maintain Fitness with Less Time

by Joseph A. Luxbacher

Question: “I recently completed the Pittsburgh half marathon. Although not a competitive runner I’m probably in the best shape of my life. However, over the next few months I won’t have time to run my usual 25–30 miles per week. Is there anything I can do to maintain my present level of fitness, or will …

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Birds

King of the Woodpeckers

by David Liebmann

The pileated woodpecker burst out of nowhere just as I thought my students’ field exam was over. As soon as we were aware of it materializing from the canopy of a tree on a green at the Pittsburgh Field Club, it flew like a black bolt into denser woods and disappeared again. A great last …

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Arrivals

Bell, Link, Bachar, Logue, Gould, Dressel, Koverola

by PQ Staff

Maurice Bell is chief of operations at the Port Authority of Allegheny County. His public and private sector transportation career spans more than 25 years and includes work in fixed route, paratransit operations, airport shuttle management, and shipping and delivery logistics. He came to Pittsburgh from Keolis North America in Dallas, Texas, where he was …

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Regional News

Low Unemployment Settles in the Region

by Julia Fraser

Unemployment in southwestern Pennsylvania held steady in June, hovering below 4 percent as it has for the past few months as workers across the region and nation continue to find and hold onto jobs. In year-over-year comparisons, the seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate in the seven-county Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area fell from 4.2 percent in June 2018 …

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Events

Summer Safari: A Wild Zoo Party

by PQ Staff

Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium’s annual party, Summer Safari, sold out with over 1,400 guests. Party-goers strolled through the zoo on the warm summer night of Friday, July 26 to enjoy the animals and a variety of delicious foods and thirst-quenching drinks, all while donning safari-inspired fashion. [ngg src=”galleries” ids=”328″ display=”basic_thumbnail” thumbnail_crop=”0″] Guests this year …

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Nature

Catching Critters

by David Macpherson

The second floor office window of my home looks out over a lovely rural valley 25 miles east of Pittsburgh. Immediately below my window is a field that slopes away to a line of trees about 50 yards away. From my perch, fauna appear intermittently and behave as if I’m not there, as if I’m …

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