Hi,
Tomorrow is the anniversary of the Dred Scott Decision (1857), the fall of the Alamo (1836) and it’s Ghana’s Independence Day. Birth anniversaries include comedian Lou Costello (1906), artist Michelangelo (1475), poet Elizabeth Browning (1806) and artist Anna Claypoole Peale (1791).
What an inspiring person, Amy Brooks. Born with congenital tetraphocelia, abandoned by her birth mother at birth and loosing her extremities due to her disease as an infant, she has the most positive attitude you can imagine. Nothing in her life is easy and she maintains the most positive attitude towards life as she gave a presentation to eighth grade art students at Hampton Middle School on her artistic abilities.
East Ohio Street here on the Northside recently picked up a new tea shop called Arnold’s Tea Shop. It has quite the inventory of teas and serves some meals and pastries. It also has quite the assortment of tea accessories. Verna Arnold is a retired school teacher and principle and decided to open a tea shop she had seen in much of her foreign travels. She serves afternoon tea and cafe menu from 2 – 4 pm and high tea from 5 – 7 pm, but opens 7:30 am (9 on Saturdays and Sundays).
The Greater Pittsburgh Food Bank and Just Harvest are having their annual Empty Bowls dinner March 2 pm to 6 pm at Rodef Shalom Congregation in Oakland. For $22 you get homemade soup and bread served in a hand made ceramic bowl specific for this event. The bowls are hand crafted by local artisans and not such artisans, just normal people trying to help out making a bowl or twelve. A great cause and souvenir They anticipate over 1,000 people to attend and they do sell out every year, so if you are thinking of attending, I suggest visiting either of their websites or call the Food Bank at 412-460-3663 or Just Harvest at 412-431-8960.
Toyota’s premiering a new green vehicle, the Mirai. They are using revolutionary hydrogen fuel cells and plan on competing directly with Tesla’s battery electric vehicles (BEV). The amazing thing about the Mirai is it can go 300 miles on one charge and recharges in just 5 minutes! Comparable to Tesla’s S Model’s distance, but the Tesla S retails for $80,000 and the Mirai’s list price is $45,000. The only exhaust from the Mirai is water vapor. Toyota plans to start selling them in Japan next year and expand from there. $45,000 is a lot for a car, but I remember when the Tesla first came out well over $100,000. Toyota have the finances and engineering that if this vehicle works out as planned, they should be able to bring the price of this technology down where the masses could buy one.
Terra Sherry-Torres’ Cafe Con Leche is a Pittsburgh based non-profit whose goal is to bring together members of our Latino community and those non Latinos that want to experience their rich culture (and food). 🙂 Terra organizes events featuring music, food and dancing. I saw Terra’s performance at The Arts Festival last year (or was it the year before) and they are very talented and uplifting. They will be performing Yo Soy Latina at the Kelly Strayhorn Theater at 5941 Penn Avenue on March 14 at 7:30 pm. They play will focus on challenges Latino women face and help people understand that Latinos are multi-layered. Tickets are $15 and more info can be had at their website or by calling 412-626-7350.
No rush, the new exhibit at The Carnegie Science Center called H2Oh: Why Our Rivers Matter is expected to run for the next five years. But it seems to be a pretty powerful exhibit. Did you know the earth is cover by 71% water and of that, only 3.5% is freshwater and of that, only .02% is in rivers and lakes. That .02% is where we get most of our drinking water, makes you appreciate efforts to clean up our waterways. The exhibit will also focus on fauna and flora dependent on our rivers as well as things like physics of water like water tension, dynamics of rain, sewage treatment as well as treatment of water drawn from our rivers. A very educational and interesting exhibit. More info at their website or by calling 412-237-3400.
The art exhibit at The Society for Contemporary Craft in the Strip has a new and fun twist, Bridge 13 is featuring works by Elisabeth Higgins O’Connor, Keith Lo Bue and Jason Walker. California native Elisabeth makes these larger than life animal figures whimsically created with 2 x 4 and anything she can lay her hands on. When the creature is just about finished, she adds the arms that signify if the creature is angry, upset, happy, etc. On a not so massive scale, Australian Keith Lo Bue makes his creations also from great finds at thrift stores and other rummaging forays. He has 20 pieces on display and Jason eight pieces of his fanciful ceramic pieces. Mt Lebanon city council should check out his Stranding in the Grass, it’s an image of a deer standing in a city. (In case you haven’t been following events in Mt Lebanon, their city council decided there are too many deer in the borough causing havoc. So they authorized a culling program in this densely populated community by luring deer into pens and then shooting them. Many residents are up in arms over this-pun intended). 🙂
How does he do it? Braddock Mayor John Fetterman has lured Barebones Productions theater company to occupy the part of Superior Motors chef Kevin Sousa isn’t occupying. Bearbones Productions has been producing their shows around the city as one of our many homeless arts troupes. May 14 they roll out their new production American Falls. In case you missed my past post about Kevin, he’s turning part of the Superior Motors building into his latest restaurant venue featuring about as local as you can get vegetables from across the street in a small farm he’s building. Braddock is a fairly depressed area, Kevin is planning a job training program for culinary arts at this restaurant to teach locals the culinary skills so they are employable. And because of the economic profiles of many of his neighbors, he plans on having a neighbor price for the entrees that will be much more affordable than we would pay.
