10/15/14 - 10/22/14 Arts and Urbanism Roundup

Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh wins Gawker's ugliest accent contest (People Magazine)

Dear Jagoffs, Pittsburgh officially has the ugliest accent in America (Gawker)

The Pittsburgh Anthology: Call for proposals and submissions (Belt Magazine)

Pittsburgh singer Chris Jamison advances on "The Voice"  (NBC)

4121 Main, mixed use arts space opens in Bloomfield (Pop City)

Former churches blessed with new lives in Pittsburgh (New York Times)

Halloween Party planned for Carrie Furnace (The Brew Gentlemen)

Cleveland

The Cleveland Museum opens major Jennifer Bartlett retrospective 

Five reasons to visit Cleveland now (Fodor's Travel)

Looking back at the East Ohio Gas company explosion, 70 years later (Cleveland Scene)

Possible clash over Soldiers and Sailors monument could hold up Public Square redesign (Cleveland.com)

Rediscovering Cleveland poet, Russell Atkins  (Belt Magazine)

Ohio

Haunting Houses: Ohio's abandoned country houses- in pictures (The Guardian)

West Virginia and Appalachia

Morgantown police investigate post Baylor game riots

History professor's new book brings old "blood feud" back to life

A (yes) culinary road trip through Appalachia (Wall Street Journal)

Inaugural Appalachian Queer Film Festival to debut in Lewisburg (The Charleston Gazette)

Other Urbanism and Architecture News

These conservatives make the case or vibrant cities. Most of their friends ignore them. (Grist)

The redevelopment racket (The American)

More prefer public transit to road building (ABC News)

DC's new parents aren't fleeing to the burbs (Streetsblog)

Atlanta's MARTA transit agency ramps up transit oriented development (Atlanta Business Chronicle)

Federal Government releases map of proposed Houston/ Dallas bullet train route

Why no one drives to work in Hong Kong  (Market Urbanism)

Photo essay: L.A.'s architecture of insecurity (Los Angeles Times)

Can the homeless move into Baltimore's abandoned houses? (City Lab)

Norfolk's light rail choice: Embrace the city or follow the highway? (Greater Greater Washington)

Arcadia California: The U.S. town every Chinese millionaire wants to live in (Wall Street Journal)

Berlin wants to build a pool in the middle of the city's river (City Lab)

Uber can fill gaps in Anchorage area transit  (Alaska Dispatch News)

With farms fading and urban might rising, power shifts in Iowa (The New York Times)

Other Art and Culture News

Oldest Homo Sapiens DNA found (Cent News)

Another vandal hits Jeff Koons retrospective (Hyperallergic)

French President pledges support for Paul McCarthy's "butt plug" (Hyperallergic)

An Iranian-American artist revisits images from the 1979 revolution (Hyperallergic)

Can a biennial fix New Orleans? (The Art Newspaper)

How Rembrandt dressed his women for death (The Guardian)

No second coming or deflated, Paris "sex toy" sculpture  (AFP)

Ronald Perelman vs Larry Gagosian feud shakes the art world (New York Times)

The 50 greatest paintings in New England (Boston Globe)

"Outreach" is killing the American Orchestra (New Republic)

Famed fashion designer, Oscar de la Renta dies at 82 (New York Times)

Bon Appetit Appalachia Gastro-Tourism Website Launches To Help People Discover Local Food Treasures

Appalachians did the hyper-locavore thing before it was trendy.

Now a single site shows the best 283 destinations for a great food experience- from restaurants to markets, festivals, farms, vineyards and breweries.

Bon-Appetit Appalachia

"During winter 2013 and early 2014 nominations were reviewed, fact checked, researched, and supplemented with additional or missing sites, especially by geography and type. The result was a balanced list of 283 sites among six categories:

1. Farms

1. Farmers Markets

1. Restaurants

1. Festivals

1. Wineries

1. Breweries/Spirits

The site seems easy to search by location or interest. No doubt I will be using it.

West Virginia Bridge Day: Live Feed From New River Gorge Bridge Jump

Each year avid thrill seekers head to jump off a bridge over a massive gorge.

To each his own. You may not want to do this, but Pittsburgher's should be happy an amzing place like West Virginia's New River Gorge is just a few hours drive away.

http://www.officialbridgeday.com/live-feed

BuckWild: Why Is Making Fun of Rural Whites So Cool?

 

 

 

 

There are few things I hate more than political correctness but one of them is hypocrisy. While stereotypes are often central to humor, most of the public and media have grasped the harm they can often do- often imposing an extreme level of sensitivity to the way many groups are portrayed. Rural Appalachian whites remain as a group it's more than cool to make fun of, as embodying everything that's dumb in America.

It's not new.

From an essay on Yahoo :Appalachian Americans: The Invisible Minority

These sentiments are deeply ingrained in American history. For centuries politicians displayed prejudice towards Appalachians, making comments like "[They are] the lowest scum and rabble..." "the vilest tricking and cheating... people into whose heads no means can beat the notion of a public interest or persuade to live like men," and "the laziest two legged animals that walk erect on the face of the Earth. Even their motions are slow, and their speech a sickening drawl... a natural stupidity or dullness of intellect that almost surpasses belief," (Heilman, 2004). Although Appalachians are considered 'white Americans,' such statements reek of racist social Darwinism. The centuries-old stereotype that anyone with an Appalachian accent possesses a "natural stupidity," is still perpetuated by the media. Television shows like "Beverly Hillbillies", "Green Acres" and "Hee Haw" have been described as "the most intensive effort ever exerted by a nation to belittle, demean and otherwise destroy a minority people within its boundaries"

Sadly, our tolerant nation seems almost more divided than ever, with "sophisticated urbanites" eager to point out the contrast between themselves and the ... other people out there. BuckWild, a new "reality show" of course shows you exactly how most people live in West Virginia.

See Trailer Here:

From The Charleston Gazette:

"Bailey said these kinds of reality shows tend to sensationalize and exaggerate, and she hoped people watching "Buckwild" at home will see it not as how West Virginians really live.

"Obviously, the show is just perpetuating a stereotype West Virginia has been working hard to shed ourselves of," she said. "Unfortunately, a show of this nature, if it becomes popular, will make it very hard to sell the state of West Virginia or the city of Charleston."

Photo Essay On Steeltown Anthem Of The Old Weston State Hospital

My blog, hopes to tune you into some of the great and strange sites and happenings in West Virginia too.

A guest post on Steeltown Anthem has a good photo tour of the old Weston State, Mental Hospital, now known as The Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. I've heard a few stories from someone who had to work there for a while and from what she said, the scale of suffering there was enormous.

From the pictures it looks like a pretty amazing place.

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HISTORIC TOURS OFFERED*
March 26th, 2011 – October 31st, 2011


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