September 9, 2008 - Enviro Film Fest, Urban Foraging, and Bigfoot comes to NWPA (again)

Do you realize that this fall you can see free movies Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday as well as free shows on Friday. This is shaping up to be a busy Fall. Newly announced is The University of Pittsburgh at Titusville'environmental film series.

The schedule of events for this fall includes:

September 25, 2008: A Crude Awakening.
October 9, 2008: The End of Suburbia.
October 23, 2008: The Power of Community.
November 4, 2008: Who Killed the Electric Car?
November 20, 2008: An Inconvenient Truth.

All movies run from 7 - 9 p.m. in Haskell Memorial Library and are free and open to the public

At the conclusion of each screening, the audience is encouraged to discuss what can be done, what should be done, and the consequences of inaction.

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A select group of students from the Slippery Rock University theater department traveled to Edinburgh, Scotland this summer from July 29 through Aug. 13 to perform the original play The Margins at The Festival Fringe.

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The Meadville Tribune takes a look at last week's 8 hour art project at Allegheny College.

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Want to plan ahead? The Titusville Herald is listing August 2009 Oil 150 activites.

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Award-winning poets Annie Finch and Paula Bohince will read from their work at 8 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 11 in the Tillotson Room of Allegheny College's Tippie Alumni Center at Cochran Hall. The program, which is free and open to the public, is part of the college's Single Voice Reading Series.

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Pittsburgh Opera has announced a partnership with Locks of Love. Pittsburgh Opera wigmaster James Geier will snip the locks of five people who wish to donate their hair to help children suffering from hair loss at Pittsburgh Opera’s new headquarters in the Strip at 2425 Liberty Avenue on Wednesday, October 8. It's also a great chance to check out their refurbished building – George Westinghouse’s original air brake factory – which now includes creative space for costumers, wigmakers, makeup artists, and other theater crafts. And, of course, steal their ideas for our region.

Those wishing to participate should send their name, a photo, and contact information to Allison Ruppert. Please type “Locks of Love” in the subject line.

Pittsburgh Opera is also inviting salons to register for this drive by downloading an application form at www.pittsburghopera.org. Participating salons that have submitted 5 ponytails or more to Locks of Love between August 1 and October 1 will receive four tickets to a performance of Samson & Dalila. They also will be given four free passes to OperaBLAST!, a late-night party celebrating the opening of the Pittsburgh Opera’s 70th season on October 18.

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An Oskar Schindler exhibition is coming to Youngstown this week and running through Oct. 22 at the Youngstown Historical Center of Industry and Labor

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What it means to be an urban forager

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Build a digital pin-hole camera

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i can has exhbit?

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The Pennsylvania Bigfoot Society' East Coast Bigfoot Conference is on September 27, 2008

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Or you could always head East and search for the Jersey Devil:

On the surrounding walls hang old illustrations of that which they seek: cloven hooves, a horselike face, a wing span perhaps too wide for browsing the aisles at the Super Foodtown a few doors down.

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Pittsburgh lists the Best (and Worst) of Pittsburgh

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Google has begun scanning microfilm from some newspapers’ historic archives to make them searchable online

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Flat World Knowledge wants to give away college textbooks.

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Free and Legal Downloads:

Ben Kweller Live at Stonewall Music Hall on July 4, 2008

Death Cab for Cutie Live at Seattle Center on September 1, 2008

Vivian Girls Live at the East Village Radio Fest on September 7, 2008

Slippery Rock University is sponsoring a show of Marine Corps combat photographer Russell Lee Klika through Feb 14th.

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No more polaroids.

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Westmoreland County is the "Roswell of the East".

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Temporal Things is a blog run by a Venango Campus student and local hardcore fan (and fine photographer)

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The Westmoreland Museum of Art is hosting "Seeing the City: Sloan's New York," a traveling exhibition of 97 paintings, drawings and prints that present an in-depth view of John Sloan's years in the city and the city's effect on his art. I love Sloan's work and will probably make the drive down before it closes in April. The Butler Institute in Youngstown also has a couple of nice Sloan's including "Recruiting in Union Square":

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Speaking of Art, the Smithsonian is offering
A Thousand Kisses: Love Letters from the Archives of American Art. My Favorite? "I Went to Buy The Sunday Times":

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Free and Legal Downloads:

Dengue Fever
"Seeing Hands" (mp3)
"Tiger Phone Card" (mp3)
"Sober Driver" (mp3)
Buy at iTunes Music Store


American Music Club
"All My Love" (mp3)
"I Know That's Not Really You"
Buy at iTunes Music Store




Jason Collett
"Out Of Time" (mp3)
"Charlyn, Angel of Kensington" (mp3)


Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble
"Music for 18 Musicians" (mp3)
"Music for 18 Musicians" (mp3)
"Music for 18 Musicians" (mp3)


Vic Chesnutt Live at 40 Watt Club on February 2, 2008

Last year at about this time, I mentioned that if I didn't have restraints, I would have headed out to Calvin College's Festival of Faith and Music. Since then, I've noticed that Calvin actually does a number of really interesting thigns regarding faith and popular culture. I'm not prepared to wear a "Johnathan Edwards is my HomeBoy" But it's fascinating to see a faith based college approach the world in a very different way than say (ugh) Grove City College or Hillsdale.

There are a ton of good downloads from last year's festival including a Neko Case Interview, an Emmylou Harris interview, The Psalters "The Cry of the Exodus", and a Music Criticism Roundtable

Back to school and the accompanying germs. I'm down with the flu. Not, that I agree with flu, but rather I'm ill with it...

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Newmen play Seneca's Brother Bean on Saturday at 7pm. No cover. It's going to be a fantasic show, and you will regret it if you don't make it.

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Kathryn Kuhlman was a was a 20th Century American faith healer. who was based in Franklin, PA around 1948. Now she has her own Myspace page. And, from the comments, people aren't sure if she's alive or dead. Strange.

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From the online Derrick:
Photo by Heather Leskanic - Mark Weaver pauses at the door of his family's barn Wednesday along Stoney Lonesome Road just south of Clarion. The pastoral mural was painted over the course of several years by Oil City artist Jill Mattson... Mattson will be hosting a workshop on how music can positively affect your personal aura from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 27.

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Sometimes, with so many chain stores, it's easy for us outsiders to forget that Pittsburgh has a thriving indie bookstore scene.

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The first show of the Slippery Rock University theater department’s 2007-2008 season is “Tallgrass Gothic,” a haunting story of obsessive love. Tallgrass Gothic is intended for mature audiences. Curtains are at 8 p.m. Sept. 28-29 and Oct. 1-3, with a 2 p.m. matinee Sept. 30 in Miller Auditorium. Tickets are $5 for SRU students and $10 for the general public. Reservations for the 90-minute show may be made in person from 1-2 p.m. weekdays beginning Sept. 17 at the Miller Auditorium Box Office, or by calling 724.738.2645.

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Takoma Park MD has a poet lauraeate, but Venango County doesn't?! C'mon!

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The Slippery Rock Rocket takes on...poetry?

There's a reason a lot of people hate "poetry". . . and it all comes down to this: it can be boring.
But poetry doesn't have to be that way. We don't have to groan every time a copy of "The Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot graces our presence. That poem has to be one of the most elitist things ever written.
Because it consists of so many allusions to other things, it was almost as if Elliot was just trying to prove his poetical superiority...
Indeed.

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The Great Lakes Independent Film Festival starts today and runs through Sunday September 30 at The Roadhouse Theatre (145 West 11th Street Erie PA 16501).

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NPR streams a live Okkervill River show on Septemeber 30th. catch live Iron and Wine the night before.

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Some free and legal downloads for you. First the latest from Pittsburgh's Karl Hendricks Rock Band (If you're old like me, you remember The Karl Hendrick's Trio). Check out the cover art from Mike Budai (who still owes me a signed print)

The Karl Hendricks Rock Band
"Mediocre Advice" (mp3)
from "The World Says"
(Comedy Minus One)
More On This Album

Next, something from Sonic Youth's frontman
Thurston
"Frozen Gtr" (mp3)
"Fri/End" (mp3)
from "Trees Outside the Academy"

Thanks to fourth grader Casey Hall 450 people showed up to see RL Stine at SRU. To put it into perspective, yesterday, 250 people showed up at Sen McCain's rally to announce his presidential candacy. Now, can we get the kid to come back to the area when she grows up and book shows?

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Looks like a roadtrip kind of weekend. First and most important is Friday's Jerome Wincek show at Erie's Avalon Hotel (16 w. 10th st., Erie, Pennsylvania). The hardest working man in show business is playing from 9-1 .

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The Meadville Market House is hosting Emil & the Palookas on Friday, April 27th 8:00PM - 11:00PM, $4.00 cover (or "donation"as they put it, which I guess means I can write it off.) On Saturday in the Market House, it's the Blue Planet Cafe with Gaffer, Sally Wilcox, and Title Me Wrong playing from 7:00PM to 10:00PM. Another $4.00.

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While I'm a die-hard Seawolves fan (all right, I really just like drinking Railbender Ale in the stands on sunny days.) it was great to hear that SRU will host two professional sports teams this summer. The New Castle Thunder of the North American Football League, a minor league football organization, will play its home games at Bob DiSpirito Field at N. Kerr Thompson Stadium. The Thunder will hold practice sessions at Thompson Stadium, and out of its 10-game schedule will play five regular-season home games. Home games are scheduled for June 16 and 30, July 14 and 28, and Aug. 4.

Earlier, I wrote about the Slippery Rock Sliders, one of the newest teams in the independent Frontier Baseball League, calling SRU home for the upcoming season. The Sliders' home opener is set for May 29.

I'm kind of surprised that a place like Oil City hasn't tried to score a farm team.

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The line up for the Firefly Music Festival has been announced.
The Jul 27, 2007 festival on The Arthur Farm (28555 White hill RD. Cambridge Spring, PA 16403) features:
The Recipe, Big Leg Emma, Grassfire, The Yankee Zydeco Company, Sage, Gypsy Dave and the Stump Jumpers, Jay Hitt, Salmon Frank, The Sofa King Cool Band, Milo Page, Jim Froman's Hot Rhythm Club Band, The Great American Gypsies, Peppertown, Gaffer, Little Country Giants, Claire Stuczynski and Dan Wilcox.
That's a whole lot of hippie love, people. More acts will be announced.

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Seneca's Brother Bean has announced their upcoming Saturday acoustic shows. Shows start at 7 pm and are cover free:

4-28-07 Jesse Lavery
5-5-07 Psalters
5-12-07 Big Tone
5-19-07 Bruce and Sean
5-26-07 Donna Donahue
6-2-07 Newman
6-9-07 Jime Teifer
6-16-07 Jon Felton and his Soulmobile
6-23-07 Bruce Squared
6-30-07 Ryan Waterman
7-7-07 Dennis McCurdy and the Lonesome No More Band.

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The Monongahela Review is seeking submissions of poetry, prose (fiction or nonfiction), and photography/art. It's a .pdf publication which I think is a stunningly good idea for a small press lit mag.

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I wish I was headed to the 2007 Symposium on Lensless, Alternative and Adaptive Photographic Processes a four-day, Pittsburgh wide series of talks, workshops and exhibits on lensless, historic and adaptive DIY photography conference. It started today and is sponsored by f295.

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The six-day Russian Film Symposium, co-presented by the University of Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh Filmmakers, begins Mon., April 30, and offers a dozen films, to be shown on the Oakland campus and at the Melwood Screening Room, in North Oakland.

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The Three Rivers Arts Festival, taking place June 1-17, recently announced its music schedule. --Cowboy Junkies, Robert Randolph and Los Lonely Boys.

The local main-stage night will feature local psychedelic heroes Black Moth Super Rainbow and indie rockers Race the Ghost on June 4.

The Market Square stage, meanwhile, hosts the Circuits of Steel experimental/electronic showcase June 8, featuring Grand Buffet, Rein[Forced], Discuss and Xanopticon. Arts collective Unicorn Mountain's Storybook Wonderland is there on June 9, and new TRAF partner FLUX, the multi-disciplinary arts party that recently re-debuted in Braddock, will be held on June 16.

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My daughter and I were torn about going to the Pittsburgh Comicon. In the end, we decided that we would be more annoyed than amused and nixed it. But if your tolerance is higher than ours, head to the ExpoMart, Monroeville.When: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday; 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday

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Venangoland has been updated.

Delwende is this week's Venango Campus Independent Film Series film. It starts at 7:30 pm in Rhoades Auditorium and is free.

SRU has another reason to be proud:
Simpson, better known as ChipBurger or Chip "The Phenom" Simpson, is the No. 6 ranked competitive eater in the world [and} a Slippery Rock University physical therapy graduate student. . .

The Great Lakes Film Association offices have moved to the Roadhouse Theatre For Contemporary Art. Which is interesting enough, but the bigger news for the consumers of culture is that "in the spring of 2007 the Great Lakes Film Association, in a cooperative effort with The Roadhouse Theatre for Contemporary Art, will launch an independent film theater offering alternative cinema."

Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theatre has announced their 2007 schedule.

"[O]ne of the best known names in circusdom in regards to flying acts" and former Pittsburgh resident Inez Hubbell Beares has died.

Speaking of dead Pittsburghers, it's been 20 years since Warhol died and,"the Andy Warhol Museum is planning a series of events later this year to mark the milestone and Warhol's influence on art and culture."

Wowio is a pretty straightforward. Free books in pdf format. There's some Sontag, some Poe, a lot of Oxford University Press -- all quality stuff. The problem is, unless you have an email that ends in .edu or .gov, you have to give them your credit card number. Which is creepy. Luckily, I have two invites to give away which will allow you to avoid using a CC #. If you're interested, email me.

The NYTimes profiles my winter fantasy.

Circa 45 is a new blog devoted to old vinyl.