Pittsburgh is the holiday spirit

Yes, it's winter, as the snow will testify!  And yes, the snow has been here quite awhile.

Ah, how I miss driving in the snow (not really).

I do, however, love the holiday decorations around town, including the hat and scarf around the dinosaur outside the Carnegie Museum.

Happy Holidays to Yinz!

Pittsburgh is poetry

Today's Poem of the day, brought to you by Poets.org is a poem by Pittsburgh native Gerald Stern.


Books


How you loved to read in the snow and when your
face turned to water from the internal heat
combined with the heavy crystals or maybe it was
reversus you went half-blind and your eyelashes
turned to ice the time you walked through swirls
with dirty tears not far from the rat-filled river
or really a mile away—or two—in what
you came to call the Aristotle room
in a small hole outside the Carnegie library

Pittsburgh is gargoyles

Or at least, it was...in honor of Halloween.

These babies were at the Phipps Conservatory.

Pittsburgh is experimental theatre

Quantum Theatre's new show is titled When the Rain Stops Falling and it just opened last weekend.

(Contrary to what you might think--it is NOT about Seattle.) 

We've got tickets for this Saturday which to me seems not soon enough.  I cannot wait that long to see this show, given what I've heard about this company (part of it from the Artistic Director Karla Boos).

Written by an Australian playwright named Andrew Bovell, it is being performed in the vacant Iron City Brewery as part of Quantum's initiative to bring theater to different non-theatre spaces, as well as to connect with the community--in this case, Lawrenceville.  They've been doing this kind of thing for twenty years now and from what I hear, they're pretty freaking amazing.

Read more about it at Boring City here.

Pittsburgh is cocktails

A friend of ours was visiting da 'burgh for the weekend and we decided to venture out last night amidst the Halloween crowd to a bar we read about in Pittsburgh Magazine, a hole-in-the-wall speak-easy type joint creating prohibition-style cocktails, nestled in the Strip District, called Embury.

This city is not known for its cocktails like New York.  It's more a shot and beer kinda place, but if you like your crazy concoctions, or you're just trying to impress some friends (or a hot date), then this place is for you.

With books lining the walls (and hiding the bathroom), high vaulted ceilings, dim lighting and dark oak wooden tables, I felt like Don Draper from Mad Men as I sipped a Manhattan (with a twist).  The Doctor had some fruity concoction (with drops of Absinthe) while our friend had the "Faust's Pact" which truly feels like you're making a deal with the devil as you drink down the mixture of gin, jalapeno juice and cayenne pepper.  It's hot, baby.  Hot!

Needless to say, we will be returning to this joint again.

Pittsburgh is for playwrights

Yep, still here.  Sorry haven't posted for awhile, but its been a busy week.

Last weekend, the Dramatists Guild of America (of which I am a proud member) descended upon the city of Pittsburg for the entire weekend and I attempted to go to as many of the events and panels as possible.

Many thanks go to the DG Regional Rep and luminary local playwright Tammy Ryan for such a stellar and well-organized series of events.

The Doctor and I went to see the Festival in Black & White at Pittsburgh Playwrights, a festival with the inspiring idea to have black directors direct plays by white playwrights and white directors direct plays by black playwrights.  The result was a wonderful evening of contrasts and similarities.  The evening we saw had a production of the first play August Wilson ever wrote, The Janitor.

We saw a production of La Ronde at The Playhouse at Point Park University, and there was a panel on women in theater with some distinguished female actors, directors and writers.  The weekend culminated with a session at the Pittsburgh Public.

All in all, a good weekend, but a busy one.  Which is to say, this is my explanation for why I'm so behind on everything else.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Pittsburgh is good food...no, really

As some of you already know, the Doctor and I love good food.

We love to eat out, whether that be at an upscale place that we can't really afford or just grabbing great chow at a late night pub.  We also love cooking at home, of course (I'm getting quite good at making home-made pasta, actually).

We were quite spoiled living in Seattle, probably the second greatest foodie town in the U.S.  We were just as spoiled living in New York City (which I deem the numero uno foodie town).

One of our missions in da 'burgh is to find great eateries, which isn't actually all that hard, depending on what you're looking for.  You can find a diverse range of food, with the help of popcity and food blogs like foodburgh, which gave a good review of Sababa Grill, a place just down the way form us on Murray Avenue.


I'm happy to report we've found a good Thai place called Silk Elephant, located right near the corner of Murray and Forbes, only ten minutes walk from home.

The downside?  They don't deliver.  Ah, well.

Tonight, we're actually going to eat at Eat Unique, one of the few healthy alternatives in Oakland, about a block from the university.

We're still on the prowl for a good Mexican place, but we know there must be one somewhere out there.  We have some leads and will report back soon.

Pittsburgh is for Panthers

This guy (or gal) greets me every time I walk from my house to Pitt (or the Oakland Carnegie Library).

He (or she) guards the bridge over Panther Hollow, which legend has it used to have real panthers roaming around, feeding on the deer.  Now mostly there are just joggers roaming around.  And a few deer.

(The joggers don't feed on the deer.  As far as I know...)

Pittsburgh is libraries

Carnegie sucked all the marrow out of Pittsburgh steelworkers, working them literally to death, then turned around and gave them free libraries.  


Equal trade-off?  


Eh, probably not.  


But they are nice libraries…


I know that my summary of Carnegie's involvement in the development of Pittsburgh is simplistic, but now that I've got my library card, I can read more about it.


(FYI, yes the sky is really that blue today.  In October.  I promise eventually I'll stop posting about the weather.  Soon as winter comes.)

Pittsburgh is for Garmin lovers

One thing about da burgh is that you will get lost when you drive.  It’s inevitable.  And though we don’t own a Garmin, yet, we do consult google maps on a daily basis. 

I must also preface this post by mentioning the fact that I do have a keen sense of direction.  I worked as a pizza delivery driver in college.  I drove into cities and town all over the U.S. as a children’s theater tour manager.  It’s an odd phenomena for me to find myself lost, even in a new city.

It’s not so much that the roads are all that confusing in da’ burgh, though they do twist and turn around hills.  It’s just that the route to your destination is rarely the same route back.  And once you get lost on the way back, there can be this compounding effect and the next thing you know, you’re in Cleveland.

For example…

The Doctor and I are heading out for a late night theater show downtown.  We give ourselves plenty of time to get there (a ten minute drive) and find parking.  I’ve looked it up on the map and the route seems easy, so off we go.  I drive down the 376 heading east and get off downtown, heading towards Liberty.  Only problem is there’s construction, and it’s dark, and I have no idea which of the five intersecting streets I end up is actually Liberty.  So we end up going on a different road and the next thing I know I’m driving up a ramp and I’m on a bridge headed to the north side.  This isn’t good, I think.  So I get off the bridge and try to figure out where I am. 

There’s a big building that says PNC park.  Ah, that’s helpful.  I turn the car around and think to myself, “I’ll just get back on that bridge and get right back downtown.  How hard can that be?”

But there doesn’t seem to be a way to get back on that bridge.  We end up driving under it.  Then I end up on another ramp, which although the ramp was leading south to downtown, turns us around and now we’re driving north on the 279 freeway in the HOV express lane, the nearest exit 12 miles away.  We finally get off the freeway god knows where and consult the map.  The Doctor and I switch places so she can drive and I can navigate.

I figure out how to get us back on the 279 and I think how to get back downtown.

You’re probably thinking, wow, that’s rough.

But it gets worse…

Because of construction, we can’t access the bridge we needed to take (well, we could’ve taken a different route or different bridge but I didn’t know that at the time), and so we end up on the wrong bridge and are now on the other side of the river from downtown, following the most bizarre trail of detour signs.  Finally, we arrive to the entrance of the tunnel to the Fort Pitt bridge, get across the river,  and at last, are driving down Liberty, where we are met with more construction signs and it seems we can’t drive down Liberty at all, so we have to think fast and go around and around, until finally, we just park the car.

The ten-minute drive turned into forty-five minutes of anxiety where we got to traverse not one, but all three rivers.  Luckily, we still made it to the show.

My father-in-law says he’s getting me a Garmin for Christmas.  I think that might be too late to prevent any other mishaps.

Pittsburgh is for left turns

Driving in the eastern part of the U.S. has always been an adventure that I relish.

A few weeks ago, we were giving someone a ride home from a show and he jokingly said, “Were you ever a New York taxi driver?”

I shrugged because although I never drove a taxi, I did have to drive in and out of Manhattan often for the theatre tour I managed. I loved the mania of it all, the feeling that “whatever you do, don’t stop, just keep it moving”.


Pittsburgh is not as crazy as the big apple. Drivers here are far more aggressive, though, than on the west coast. This doesn't mean that yinzers aren't accommodating at all, though.

Case in point: the “Pittsburgh Left”.
 

If you’re stopped at a red light and the car across from you has the turn signal on, you have to assume that car will turn immediately when the light turns green, whether it has the right of way or not.  Cars won’t always take the Pittsburgh Left, but you just need to watch out for it.  It's better to assume they're turning. 

This maneuver has become such the unwritten rule that now cars that have the right to go straight will often stay stopped and let the oncoming car turn left, usually waving them on.  

The first time a car turned left at me, I was coming right at it and had to stop (see diagram courtesy of www.boringpittsburgh.com for my thoughts).  

And the first time a car waived me on so I could turn left, I was confused by the generosity and an action that seems the exact opposite of the aggressive idealogy of driving in this town: "Is he waving me on?  But...its his right of way, I...uh, okay..."

But now I take the Pittsburgh Left all the time, whether I deserve it or not.

Hey, I’m just trying to blend in. 

Pittsburgh is for 'arn

Here’s a peculiar thing about Pittsburgh.  

(Okay, really it’s about the whole state of Pennsylvania, otherwise known as the Quaker state.)

It's the beer situation. 

The first time I went to the beer store, and by beer store, I mean beer distributor because you can't just get your six pack at 7/11 or something, I walked around a long, long time.  All I could think was, they must have a high demand for cases here in da 'burgh.

I was informed by the friendly beer seller that we don't do 6 packs here (except for buying it from a bar directly which is like getting your buffalo wings to go). 

Now, it's not a big deal that I have to go to the state run liquor store to get my wine (even for a guy who lived in Vegas where you could practically buy hard liquor out of vending machines at daycare centers) but I find it slightly inconvenient to have to peruse a warehouse-style distributor to get my beer.  Especially since this town is a pretty big beer town.  You think they'd make it easier.  

For some reason, you didn't have to twist my arm to buy a whole case of Yuengling and case of Iron City, otherwise known as an “Arn”, ie: “I’ll have an ‘Arn”.  So I guess its an inconvenience that I really don't mind.  

Pittsburgh is for stink bugs

Stink bugs are an epidemic this year in the Allegheny county region, according to most news reports I've been reading in the PG and the Trib online.

WPXI even did a special news feature on the little pests.  There is even some disturbing video of a woman who has had thousands invade her home. Watch this to see how the critters get in.

We don't have thousands, but do see at least a dozen almost every day outside.  On the warmer, sunnier days we keep the windows closed because they find their way through the gaps of the screens (why are there such big gaps? you'll have to talk to our property managers) or they get in through the vents.

 I've become a master of killing the little suckers by trapping them in a glass and flushing them.

They're tricky to kill outright, see, because they emit an odor when  attacked or when they die.  Hence, "stink bug".

(Someone suggested getting bug spray but they are also resistant to various forms of spray, like Raid. Personally, I like the old-fashioned way of killing bugs by trapping them and flushing them and by old-fashioned, I mean the way the ancient Romans used to do it in the coliseum days, of course.)

A few nights ago I woke up in the middle of the night and walked to the bathroom and a smell attacked my nostrils like no other. Being half-wake, I attributed it to my dog who often emits her own stink bombs as she is happily dozing and farting away in dream-land.

The next morning, the cat was playing with the body of at stink bug in the hall, which leads me to believe the cat is getting good at killing them, too, only she doesn't care if they release their stink or not. I felt a little sorry for blaming the dog about the odor.

It's not like they're dangerous.  They don't bite.  They're not poisonous.  They're just annoying.

They say when the first frost comes, they'll all be dead.  Makes me feel slightly sorry for them.

Actually, not really.

Pittsburgh is for running in the park

Eventually I may stop comparing the weather here in da 'burgh to Seattle, but probably not until the first snow fall.

In Seattle, the mentality towards the sun is similar to firemen towards fire.  When it happens, you rush outside as quickly as possible before it disappears (which could be ten minutes or an hour).

After years of running in a cloudy climate, I truly do enjoy running the trails in Schenley Park in 70 degree sunny weather.

Here's a photo of the Panther Hollow Trail where you can usually find me sweating and catching my breath at least a few times a week.

(FYI, this is also how the Doctor walks to Pitt.)

Pittsburgh is pride

So last night I’m on the bus, heading dahntan (aka “downtown).  It’s about 6 pm and I catch the 61C at Philips and Murray.  A few minutes later, I see this guy wearing a Pens jersey (Penguins, our hockey team, duh) and I think, “I need to get me one of those”. 

Another couple of minutes go by, some Pitt students get on in Oakland, all three wearing different Pens jerseys.  I assume they must be going to the game together but I realize, they’re not talking to each other at all. 

As we drive east, more people with Pens shirts and jerseys board the bus and slowly I am surrounded by yellow and black.  I look out the window and now we’re getting closer to the Consol Energy Center and all I see are people wearing Pens shirts and jerseys. 

Everywhere.

Now, I’ve seen displays of team pride before, but the floodwater of yellow cascading over the sidewalks is slightly overwhelming.

I must admit, though, I suddenly wished I was going to that game instead of staying on the bus.  

I can't wait to witness the madness of a Stillers game.

Pittsburgh is wildlife

Although I have no photo to prove it, this morning while walking my dog, Maddy, we saw three deer in Schenley Park.  

One of them was even wearing a terrible towel.  

(Okay, now everyones knows a deer wouldn't be wearing a terrible towel today because the game isn’t even until Sunday).

In the city of Seattle, I saw a bald eagle, two huge raccoons about the size of my dog, and although I didn't see it, there was a wild bear on the loose, making its way across 99 N heading through the urban backyards to find his home, maybe up in Bellingham.  

But I never saw any deer.  I know they were there, but not in Licton Springs park, that's for sure.

Maddy the dog seemed nonplussed by the deer and continued to eat grass.

Pittsburgh is for speaking Pittsburghese

Okay, so I need to make a slight clarification before too many Pittsburghers send me emails about it.

Pittsburghers speak a wonderful version of English which they call Pittsburghese.  Sam McCool wrote a great and informative book which I carry often with me to translate words like, “spicket” and “nebby”.  

For instance, I don’t live in the neighborhood of “Squirrel Hill”.  I live in “Skworuhil”. 

Here’s some sample dialogue of Pittsburghese:

“Jeet jet?”

“No, I dinnet.  J’ew?”

“How’s about we go dahntawn for sammitches at Primantis?”

“Alright.  Ahz ready for a cold ahn and a good mill”.

There are of course, linguistic websites devoted to this particular language and those that speak it, which are called Yinzers.

So it is incorrect for me to actually say “I speak Yinz”. 

This blog isn’t devoted solely to the verbal language of Pittsburgh, though.  This is for observations of all things Yinz.  The language.  The terrain. The people.  The wonderful uniqueness of the experience.

For me, to say “I speak yinz” is a metaphor. 

I know, I know.  Perhaps that explanation is a little, well, slippy, innit? 

I can already see the email inbox filling up.  (Sigh)

Pittsburgh is sunshine

Now some folks in Pittsburgh like to complain about the weather.

They say how hard it is to endure the long months between January and March.

Yinz have never lived in the pacific northwest.

While I'm not looking forward to the snow this winter, I am enjoying the sunshine in September.

These photos were taken today at Schenley Plaza.


Nice, right?  Ah, gotta love it...

Pittsburgh is for art lovers

The Doctor and I went to the Warhol Museum today.  It's located just across downtown, just over the Andy Warhol bridge (how lucky is it that Andy Warhol was born in a city with a bridge that has the same name as him, right?!).

Now, I'm a big art lover.  So's the Doctor.  And while this is definitely a museum worth seeing, it didn't wow us.

Maybe I'm not a big Warhol fan yet.

Although, they do have a cool gift shop, where you can get kitschy cool stuff like the "inspiration gift box" to the right.

It might very well be the most hip place in the 'burgh I have visited thus far, what the video installations and the hip music playing and the young hip kids working there, all dressed in black with nose piercings.  All I kept thinking about was when I used to go to clubs in the east village in NYC and felt like I didn't belong.

Or maybe that's what Warhol wants me to think.  Genius!

Luckily, there was a bar across the street, filled with some folks emptying out of the Pirates game.  And I definitely felt hip enough there to sit and enjoy a beer.

Pittsburgh is for exceptions to the rule

I don't think I've ever seen a sign like this before.  I mean, I know they must exist somewhere else, right?

"You stop...but yunz, turning right?  You're okay.  Keep movin'."


I just have to say, though, that even if the "Except Right Turn" sign isn't there, many folks don't stop when turning right.

I think that's a 'burgh thing.

Pittsburgh is for cool music

Let's kick off this blog with a little music.

Here's the video from Meeting of Important People--a local band we saw a few weeks ago.

Enjoy!

Welcome to the 'burgh!

As a newbie to the 'burgh (that's Pittsburgh to all yinz from elsewheres), I thought I might chronicle my adventures in this foreign land to all those folks back home (mostly the west coast).

Although I've lived in many places (Reno, Vegas, New York City, Richmond, Seattle...yes, I'm a vagabond), I don't know that I've lived in a place with its own unique language.

It's called Yinz.

(Okay, first correction--it's called Pittsburghese.  If you speak Pittsburghese, you are yinz.  I think.)

I don't speak Pittsburghese.  Yet.  I am not a yinzer.  I do not yet fully comprehend or experience the spiritual plane known as the "state of yinz" (for some reason I think of it as very zen, but in a western PA kind of way)

Some day, I can hope to understand this odd language of flat a's and clever abbreviations.

With this language comes other unique factors that make this city one of the most livable places in the country (eat that, New York...no, wait, eat that Cleveland!).

Yes, Pittsburgh is up and coming, no longer the "hell with the lid off" that it used to be.

In this blog, I'll let you know what I'm learning about this city.

So all yunz grab an imp n arn, put on yir Stiller shirt and come with me as I discover the treasures and oddities of this steel city.