the Paris of Allegheny County

There were a few other disappointments on the Pittsburgh trip besides Nathan Gunn’s cancelled performances: first, despite the Internet-searching prowess that has made me a tech leader in my family (a group that, admittedly, has to lie down after changing a light bulb), I didn’t realize there was a program at the Pittsburgh Symphony (Ravel, Lutoslawski, and Rachmaninoff) and therefore also a view of Heinz Hall, that I would have enjoyed, and second, the free umbrella I received at the Pirates/Braves game was too long to fit in my suitcase so I had to leave it behind, since I was unwilling to try to explain to security at Ronald Reagan National Airport (I flew out of Washington DC) that I was not planning to bring down a plane or the government with the pointy tip of my give-away bumblebee-yellow-and-black Pirates umbrella. So much for the pirate booty of Diego the Bitter (my pirate name). I did get my usual home-team baseball cap. After much Hamlet-like deliberation and uncertainty, I ended up with one that, as a revival of a more nineteenth-century, semi-cylindrical style, was different from my other baseball caps. When Ms. S arrived to join me in Pittsburgh, she immediately declared that it made me look like a Confederate soldier, which is maybe not the part of my cultural heritage I really want to highlight. I could practically hear the Ken Burns melancholy piano tinkling, as my mournful voice-over declared in sepia tones, “Shee - yut, I should have bought the other cap.”

There are three identical, beautiful iron bridges in the center of this city of rivers and bridges, and Roberto Clemente Bridge leads to the ballpark, and Andy Warhol Bridge leads to the Warhol museum, and the Ninth Street Bridge seems to be newly named the Rachel Carson Bridge, for reasons I didn’t find out. These bridges are painted a sort of wheat yellow, and my first reaction is that I would not have chosen that color, but then I saw the yellow sandstone of PNC Park (along with lots of open ironwork, possibly as a tribute to the city’s industrial past) and then I started noticing how much yellow there was everywhere: in the stone buildings, in the football stadium seats, in the colors of the Pirates, the Steelers, and the Pitt Panthers, so the bridge color started to make sense.

Despite the increased homogenization of baseball (I loved the goofy Anaheim rally monkey until every team started selling them), there are still regional differences: for instance, the list of “Ethnic Days” at the ballpark. In Pittsburgh, there is a Latino Day, lumping together several groups that would get separate days in a place like the Bay Area, but there are individual German, Polish, and Slovak Days. I’m not seeing a big turnout on Slovak Day for either the Giants or the A’s. Every team, nation-wide, has Italian and Irish days, of course.

The Pirates were doing well until the sixth inning, when they imploded in an almost embarrassingly clumsy way and the Braves took a lead they never relinquished. As Ms. S noted, we cheered the locals as if we cared, but since we really didn’t, the loss spoiled nothing for us. We ate pierogies, a local favorite (the ballgame featured a between-innings race among three pierogies, or more precisely, three underpaid college students in large fuzzy pierogie outfits – real pierogies don’t have arms and legs – who were identified by their fillings; sauerkraut is the only one I can remember), which I realized I was confusing with piroshkis, the small meat pies. Pierogies turned out to be like palm-sized ravioli, eaten with sour cream, and stuffed with mashed potato, or mashed potato and cheese. Not bad, though a bit heavy.

At the Andy Warhol Museum, I bought a string of pierogie lights, each of which says on its border (where the ravioli would be crimped) “Pittsburgh PA Pierogie Capital of the World.” I don’t know who else is claiming the title. The back of each light says “Austro Hungarian Empire Cuisines” which is also somewhat enigmatical. The Warhol Museum is seven stories tall, but much smaller than that makes it sound. Warhol’s art is often more interesting to read about than to look at, but the whole place had a very appealing vibe. The guards were all hipster artist types, but very low-key and friendly (does that mean they weren’t actually hipster types? Or are they just Pittsburgh hipster types?), and they mostly sat there reading graphic novels. There’s a nice café and a gift shop where, in addition to the pierogie lights and some postcards, I bought a copy of John Water’s book Change of Life signed by him. Who could ask for anything more. The museum was preparing to stage a new opera based on a Chinese dissident who is inspired by the writings of Allegheny (now part of Pittsburgh) native Gertrude Stein. I was sorry I wouldn’t be around for that, since I’ve always had a Gertrude Stein thing. I once spent an hour (thanks to a faulty map of the cemetery) at Pere Lachaise searching for the grave she and Alice share. She used to insist on giving her actual birthplace instead of the simpler Oakland California because she liked to see French officials try to spell Allegheny Pennsylvania. Gertrude, you’re incorrigible!

My favorite artwork at the Warhol Museum was one I’d never heard of or seen before. I couldn't even find an identifying label. But at the back of the second or third floor there was a room that contained two fans mounted high up on the wall and about 17 or 18 identical pillow-shaped, shiny silver Mylar balloons, each roughly two feet long by one foot high. The fans were positioned so that the silver balloons floated in a gentle circle, sometimes in packs and sometimes singly, sometimes bunching up in the rafters and then getting gently bumped back into circulation by another balloon. It was dreamy and ravishing, and I loved staring at it. Occasionally a balloon would break free of the room despite the thin, almost invisible wire stretched across the top of the entrance, and the guard would put down her graphic novel and pick up a retrieving stick from the window sill, with which she would guide the balloon back to the flock. I saw at least one guy walk into the room, and though there was nothing to prohibit that, it just seemed wrong to me.

The bags at the Warhol gift shop (of course Andy has to have merchandising!) were also silver, in tribute to his silver studio, with an orange drawstring at the side, and they are so sleek and chic that I had trouble figuring out how they functioned (as I said, change a light bulb, lie down with a drink) or how to carry them. I ended up dumping it into my Pittsburgh Steelers bag, which was large enough and had clearly delineated handles. Steeler Stadium (I can’t remember which corporation bought naming rights, but they didn’t pay me so I’ll just call it Steeler Stadium) is so large it seems like a parody of a football stadium, complete with the Coca-Cola Great Hall with gigantic golden footballs suspended from the arches. Insane, and not that far physically or aesthetically from the Warhol Museum. I do regret not getting to complete the T-shirt trinity with a Pittsburgh Penguins shirt, especially since if you’ve never before had the chance to use the words “adorable” and “hockey” in the same sentence, then you just haven't seen their hockey-playing penguin logo.

The Warhol Museum is just one of the Carnegie Museums. Their museums of Art and Natural History are off in another part of town, which is not readily accessible on foot from downtown, as I discovered when I tried to walk back to my hotel. The museums are at 4400 Forbes Street, and the beginning of Forbes was near my hotel, so I should be able to walk, right? People always say, “oh, you can’t walk there” but they really just mean “it’s more than half a mile.” Anyway, the sidewalk turned to a dirt track and the street turned into a freeway and then the dirt track disappeared, and I was screwed, and not in the good way. I had to walk back to the museum and call a cab and then wait for it (within fifteen minutes of course turns into at least twenty-five minutes) while contemplating how convenient it might be on occasion to have a cell phone. Anyway, the Art and Natural History Museums are quite enjoyable, but weirdly intertwined, so that you might be looking at the flowing tresses of an auburn-haired Pre-Raphaelite maiden one moment and then turn the corner and be staring into the bony jaw of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

I probably should have suggested going back there once Ms. S joined me, but instead I wanted to see the National Aviary. It’s quite nice, and has some beautiful birds, and according to the brochure is the only bird zoo in America, but I expected something called the National Aviary to be . . . larger. We walked from there to the oddly named Mexican War Streets District, which turned out to be an appealing, Beacon-Hill-looking development of lowish brick buildings with main streets named after the major battles of the Mexican-American War, which seems like one of the odder ways to profiteer off a war, but then, Manifest Destiny was bigger in those days.

One oddity of industrial Pittsburgh is that the workers ended up living on the top of the ridge above the river – I assume by now the usual order of things has been restored and you need a lot of money to live up there, what with the spectacular views. The pain of the workers resulted as usual in quirky comforts for the well-off, since they built a couple of incline tracks up the steep hill. The inclines are like cable cars only smaller and much, much cooler, visually if not literally – on one trip we had to listen to constant complaints about the heat from a loud man who should have just let his wife enjoy the trip, which was clearly her idea. The trip lasts about three minutes, by the way. You get a nice view of the rivers and their confluence from the top as you rise up or descend, and there are viewing platforms that jut out over the hill. As we strolled along, we came to a choral group singing – the only line I could catch was “Mr Rogers is dead.” (Fred Rogers, like Mary Cassatt, August Wilson, Andy Warhol, Stein, and many others, was a Pittsburgh native – it’s funny how vivid these birthplace things become when you’re actually in the place. For instance, in Detroit, I discovered that Cathy Guisewite is a native, which would explain the “Cathy” strip’s edgy, streetwise flair.) We stood aside and listened. Afterwards a youngish guy came up to us and explained that they were part of a movement called Complaint Choirs (google them and see!) that collects complaints from their home city, sets them to music, and sings them. Most of the choirs have been in Russian or Scandinavian cities, but for obvious reasons (what city doesn’t have complaints, or choirs?) it’s spreading. He was the composer for the Pittsburgh group, and if I had it together I would have asked his name. Sorry, dude! It was nice of him to come over and offer us an explanation.

Pittsburgh is one of those former industrial powerhouses that have cleaned up real swell-like and are just pleasures to visit now, since they have the fruits of nineteenth-century industrial wealth's attempts to buy class and respectability (i.e., great museums and concert halls) without the smog and Dickensian working conditions. And unlike my hotel in LA, the Doubletree Inn did not charge me for porn I didn’t watch. Instead, they kept plying me with delicious warm chocolate-chip cookies. I now should think about getting a new job and paying off my credit cards, but even without specific events looming I’m mulling over some possible future trips. I had been thinking of going to Glimmerglass and Cooperstown next summer, but then in that compendious cornucopia of fun and fact, The Standing Room, I saw a link to Santa Fe’s 2008 season, so I’ll have to think about that instead, what with L'Amour de Loin and other good choices.

We did take a final trip up the incline after dark on Sunday, and I was sort of unreasonably excited to see a couple of deer browsing on the dark hill. Behold the power of charismatic megafauna! And though the city lying below us wasn’t exactly glittering like a handful of diamonds, there was still plenty of sparkle around the many bridges and the calmly flowing rivers, so that if not exactly like the Seine in the City of Lights, it was Parisian-looking enough to give me another comforting thought of Gertrude sitting among her masterpieces talking with geniuses while Alice talks to their wives.