Toe pick!

(from The Cutting Edge, the best skating movie out there...)

Coming soon: Monday Oct 2 for RAD days.
Mellon Arena Free Admission 6-10PM
66 Mario Lemieux Place (Uptown)
www.mellonarena.com

Be Sidney Crosby or Sasha Cohen for a night as you skate on the Mellon Arena ice. Family skate sessions from 6:00PM-7:15PM and 7:45PM-9:00PM. Ice will be cleared between the sessions. Restrictions apply: You MUST bring your own skates (can NOT enter ice without them); no hockey sticks; under age 12 MUST be accompanied by an adult to the Arena. Arena Tours take place from 6-9PM; tours last approximately 45 minutes; last tour begins at 8PM; first come, first served. Parking is free in the South and East Lots of Mellon Arena starting at 5:30PM. Enter at Gate#2 (Center Avenue). Concession stands open.

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What are RAD days? In Allegheny County, we pay 7% tax. The rest of Pennsylvania pays 6%. The extra 1% goes to libraries, stadiums, the ballet. So once a year, the organizations that get the money offer RADical Days, where stuff you'd normally pay to get in is free!!

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Margaret are you grieving over Golden Grove unleaving? (Fall is coming!!) The trees are starting to turn. I'll post pictures soon.

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MOP signs--I have been seeing them all over and wondering...this morning it hit me, Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Michael Chabon's novel being made into a movie. I haven't read it since college, and it strikes me that it was a bizarre book, but hey, I support movies being made in Pittsburgh.
So, for you, a list of movies made in our fair city: (well, the link leads you to most of them. My list is of the ones that I knew about/have seen/not seen.) Hey, it's my blog!

Flashdance: still have not seen it. But I still have pink legwarmers from when they were a fashion statement after the movie came out.

Only You: a friend from college was an assistant to someone in this flick.

Diabolique: same friend was assistant to Sharon Stone on this flick. I haven't seen this remake, but the French original is stunning in black and white.

Wonder Boys: do not watch this unless you can sit for the whole time. The first time I watched it, I got the video from the library and only watched it twenty minutes at a time. It is much better if you watch it all at once. I actually was living in Virginia when this came out, but a friend remembers being at CMU where a lot of it was filmed.

Dogma: a bit irreverent, but fun. Matt Damon had just finished reading All the Pretty Horses when this came out and so a crew member came in to Fox Books and wanted to buy all our copies as Matt (yes, we're on first name basis...not!) wanted to make a movie of it. (He did.)
Also, Alan Rickman came into same bookstore and I couldn't place him (I know I've seen him...) so I walk up to him and say "Are you in movies?" "Yes," he replied. Doh! I felt like an absolute id-jit.

Also, the church used in the movie is the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, a double spired gothic-style church in East Liberty. My dad is a stained glass afficionado and one of his favorite stained glass artists, Lawrence Saint (father of Nate Saint, one of the missionaries killed along with Jim Eliot, see the movie End of the Spear or the documentary Beyond the Gates of Splendor.) made the rose window. It was his first commissioned window.

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Also, I am rereading the first chick lit book I remember reading, Pushing Thirty by Whitney Gaskell. It takes place in DC and there are many mentions of the book The Rules. Our heroine, Ellie Winters, is almost 30 and has fallen for a man who is twenty years her senior. The review says he is "the only man on the planet who isn't interested in dating a younger woman." Main chick lit themes: old boyfriends cropping up at the wrong moment, a heroine who hates her job, and mention of pricey shoes such as Manolo Blahnik. The cover image (click on the link above) is priceless, a woman being smothered by a larger than life birthday cake.