Saturday, March 8, 2025

The Linda Lindas at Spirit Hall, April 19.


American rock group The Linda Lindas will perform in Pittsburgh at Spirit Hall on April 19.
Half Asian and half Latinx. Two sisters, a cousin, and their close friend. The Linda Lindas channel the spirit of original punk, power pop, and new wave through today's ears, eyes, and minds.
The all-ages show with Pinkshift starts at 8:00 pm and tickets are available online. Spirit is located at 242 51st St. in Lawrenceville (map).

Friday, March 7, 2025

Concert film SEVENTEEN [RIGHT HERE] WORLD TOUR IN CINEMAS in Pittsburgh, April 2 and 5.


The upcoming concert film SEVENTEEN [RIGHT HERE] WORLD TOUR IN CINEMAS will play in Pittsburgh on April 2 and 5.
SEVENTEEN RIGHT HERE! Experience the unforgettable moments of SEVENTEEN [RIGHT HERE] WORLD TOUR on the big screen, starting with the electrifying kickoff concert in Goyang! From the special concert version of "Fear" to exclusive live performances of "LOVE, MONEY, FAME (feat. DJ Khaled)" and "Ash", the full setlist—available only at the concert—will be screened in its entirety! Get ready to be immersed in the dynamic charm of SEVENTEEN’s three iconic units—Hip-hop Unit, Performance Unit, and Vocal Unit—as well as a thrilling relay of their biggest title tracks, showcasing SEVENTEEN’s A to Z! A legendary moment, created by SEVENTEEN, for SEVENTEEN, and with SEVENTEEN, comes to life once again!
It is scheduled to play locally, so far, at the AMC Loews Waterfront and the Cinemark in Robinson, and tickets are available online.

Thursday, March 6, 2025

Keiko Fukazawa Retrospective: The Space in Between free guided tour, March 15 at Contemporary Craft.


Contemporary Craft will host a free guided tour for the Keiko Fukazawa Retrospective: The Space in Between exhibition on March 15. The tour runs from 1:30 to 2:30 pm and registration is required. The exhibition runs through May 16, two weeks longer than originally announced.
Keiko Fukazawa Retrospective: The Space in Between features a comprehensive survey of California-based artist, Keiko Fukazawa’s more than forty-year career, featuring new works alongside selected archival materials. Fukazawa is deeply influenced by her Japanese heritage and American environment, addressing themes of Asian pop culture and social issues through conceptual exploration. Her functional yet impractical interpretations of traditional forms serve as personal expressions that bridge cultural boundaries.

This exhibition is organized into three themes: “Culture Clash,” “ARTivism,” and “In Betweenness,” each one representing different stages of Fukazawa’s creative evolution. As an immigrant artist, Fukazawa draws on her experiences of navigating the space between cultures and identities, infusing her work with depth and resonance. Through her use of porcelain, Fukazawa highlights ceramic artistry, process, and history advocating for the medium’s importance in the contemporary world. Keiko Fukazawa Retrospective offers a compelling narrative of artistic journey and cultural dialogue, showcasing Fukazawa’s enduring commitment to pushing boundaries and redefining the intersection of tradition, innovation and materiality with her practice.
Contemporary Craft is located at 5645 Butler St. in Lawrenceville (map).

The Annual Terry Smith Lecture in Contemporary Art: Marci Kwon, March 20 at Carnegie Museum of Art.


The Carnegie Museum of Art will host Marci Kwon on March 20 for its Annual Terry Smith Lecture in Contemporary Art.
The Annual Terry Smith Lecture in Contemporary Art honors the namesake emeritus professor in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Museum of Art advisory board member, and advances the critical mission of art history to generate a healthy discourse in the contemporary moment.

This year’s lecturer, Marci Kwon, is an award-winning art historian, writer, and teacher. Her work explores alterity, minorness, value, and the ethics of relation in art and material culture, with a special focus on the history of Asian American/diasporic artists and makers. She is Assistant Professor of Art History at Stanford University, and co-director of the university’s Asian American Art Initiative.
The talk will be held from 6:30 to 7:30 pm in the Art Theater and is free with registration. The Carnegie Museum of Art is located at 4400 Forbes Ave. in Oakland (map), accessible by a number of city buses.

2025 Japan Lecture Series – What We (Don’t) Talk About When We Talk about Literature: The Visual Representation of Language and Why it Matters in Japanese, March 20.


The Japan America Society of Pennsylvania (JASP) will present Dr. Chris Lowy and his talk "What We (Don’t) Talk About When We Talk about Literature: The Visual Representation of Language and Why it Matters in Japanese" on March 20, part of the JASP's 2025 Japan Lecture Series.
The three character sets used in Japanese - hiragana, katakana, and kanji - allow authors to create a dynamic visual representation of language, adding a unique layer to the reading experience. Poetry, advertising, and representations of dialect or internal dialog are just some of the areas where this creativity is expressed. Dr. Lowy will illuminate this aspect of Japanese literature that may be underappreciated by readers.

Join the JASP on March 20, 2025 for a lecture about how Japanese authors sculpt the architecture of language for their creative and aesthetic purposes. Light hors d’oeuvres and beverages will be provided.

Chris Lowy is the William S. Dietrich II Assistant Professor of Japanese Studies at Carnegie Mellon University. He received his PhD in modern Japanese literature from the University of Washington in 2021. He teaches courses on contemporary Japanese literature, queer literature, contemporary thought, and literary representations of illness and disease. His research focuses on two main topics: the role of written language in Japanese literature and depictions of HIV/AIDS in Japanese literature from the 1980s and 1990s. A co-authored book about the role of written language in Japanese literature will be published later this year by Hituzi Syobo.
The Japan Lecture Series is sponsored by Mitsubishi Electric Power Products, Inc. The talk runs from 6:00 to 8:00 pm in Hamerschlag Hall at Carnegie Mellon University (map): it's free, but registration is required.

ScottyCon, Carnegie Mellon's anime and video gaming convention, March 29.


Carnegie Mellon University will host its fifth ScottyCon on March 29.
Welcome to our fifth year of ScottyCon! We hope you enjoy CMU's one and only (and therefore best) anime and video gaming convention! We'll have a blast of events this year, ranging from panels, masquerade, artist alley, and much much more.
THe full lineup of events, panels, and programming will be announced later, but will include gaming consoles and game vendors, anime movie screenings, crafts, food vendors, performances, panels, and more. Pre-order tickets are $8 for CMU students and $12 for the general public, and are available until the 22nd; prices increase to $10 at the door for CMU students and $15 for general admission.

1988 Japanese animated movie Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack (機動戦士ガンダム 逆襲のシャア) in Pittsburgh, March 12 and 16.


The 1988 Japanese animated movie Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack (機動戦士ガンダム 逆襲のシャア) will play in Pittsburgh on March 12 and 16, part of an 2024/2025 AX Cinema Nights series over 2024 and 2025.
Universal Century 0093. The previously missing Char Aznable has revived Neo Zeon and declared war against the Earth Federation government. The Londo Bell unit commanded by Bright Noa is forced to fight alone and unaided against the Neo Zeon forces, which have begun dropping asteroids onto the Earth. Among the Londo Bell members is Amuro Ray, Char's longtime rival. But their valiant efforts are in vain as 5th Luna falls onto the planet.

Sensing a further threat behind Char's movements, Amuro heads for the Moon to collect the Nu Gundam, a mobile suit equipped with a psycho-frame. Waiting for him there is its lead developer, Chan Agi. Meanwhile, Bright's son Hathaway Noa meets a girl named Quess Paraya on his way into space, and is instantly attracted to her..
It plays locally at the AMC Loews Waterfront and the Cinemark theater in Robinson, and tickets are available online.

Wednesday, March 5, 2025

Sushi Atarashi's revolving sushi concept in Robinson closes, owner aims to regroup and reopen in a new location.


Sushi Atarashi transformed its Robinson location into revolving sushi restaurant on September 16, but closed a few months later on January 11. Atarashi was the second revovling sushi restaurant in Pittsburgh, after Kura Sushi opened on the Southside in September 2023.

The owner says he hopes to open a new revolving sushi restaurant in a more viable location in the city, though he's still scouting an ideal spot. The revolving concept was originally going to be part of the East End Meridian development under construction in East Liberty on the site of the former Shakespeare Giant Eagle, but ownership confirms space constraints will now limit it to an original Atarashi layout.

Sushi Atarashi is the rebranded outcome of Sushi Fuku, as the two split back in 2015 with the S. Craig St. location in Oakland retaining the original name. Sushi Atarashi---atarashi means "new" in Japanese---has several locations around the Pittsburgh area in addition to the original Oakland Avenue location.

World Literature: Yoko Tawada (Japan, Germany) “Suggested in the Stars" book talk, March 23 at City of Asylum.


The City of Aslyum will host Yoko Tawada and her book talk on Suggested in the Stars, free on March 23. 

Delivering poignant and shambolic exploits, Yoko Tawada’s Suggested in the Stars is the much-anticipated sequel to Scattered All Over the Earth. In this reading and discussion, Yoko lights up the Alphabet City stage and guides us through this second installment in her Scattered series. Suggested in the Stars delivers new delights, following Hiruko and her friends on a “strange, exquisite” (The New Yorker) trip you hope will never end.


As Hiruko—whose Land of Sushi has vanished into the sea and who is still searching for someone who speaks her mother tongue—and her new friends travel onward, they begin opening up to one another in new and extraordinary ways. They try to help their friend Susanoo regain his voice, and amid many often hilarious misunderstandings (some linguistic in nature), they empower each other against despair. Coping with carbon footprint worries, Hiruko and her friends hitchhike, take late-night motorcycle rides, and hop on the train (learning about railway strikes but also packed-train yoga) to convene in Copenhagen. There, they find Susanoo in a strange hospital working with a scary speech-loss doctor. In the half-basement of this weird medical center, they also find two special kids washing dishes. They discover magic radios, personality swaps, ship tickets delivered by a robot, and other gifts. But friendship—loaning one another the nerve and heart to keep going—sets them all (and the reader) to dreaming of something more. 


You can purchase your own copy of Yoko’s book, Suggested in the Stars, at City of Asylum Bookstore.

The talk runs from 3:00 to 4:30 pm. Registration for the free in-person and online event is required and can be completed online. The City of Asylum's Alphabet City is located at 40 W. North Avenue on the North Side (map).

New Japanese animated movie Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX -Beginning (機動戦士 Gundam GQuuuuuuX - Beginning - ) stays in Pittsburgh through March 12.

The new Japanese animated movie Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX -Beginning, which opened in Pittsburgh-area theaters on February 27, will remain here through (at least) March 12. A synopsis, from the distributor:
Amate Yuzuriha is a high-school student living peacefully in a space colony floating in outer space. When she meets a war refugee named Nyaan, Amate is drawn into the illegal mobile suit dueling sport known as Clan Battle.

Under the entry name “Machu,” she throws herself into fierce battle day after day, piloting the GQuuuuuuX. Then an unidentified Gundam mobile suit pursued by both the space force and the police appears before her, along with its pilot, a boy named Shuji.

Now their world is about to enter a new era.

The first-ever major collaboration between studio khara, the studio behind the EVANGELION Series, and SUNRISE, the historic home to the Mobile Suit Gundam animated works, brings together an all-star creative team for a groundbreaking new entry to the Gundam universe. Directed by Kazuya Tsurumaki (FLCL), with a screenplay co-written by legendary screenwriter Yoji Enokido (Revolutionary Girl Utena) and acclaimed filmmaker Hideaki Anno (EVANGELION Series), Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX -Beginning- is a stunning visual feast that will captivate fans, both old and new.
It is scheduled to play locally through the 6th at the AMC Loews Waterfront and the Cinemark theaters in McCandless, Monroeville, and Robinson, and will continue in Robinson alone from the 7th. Tickets are available online.

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