The French Flag flying for Bastille Day, but the buff Kittanning brick tells you it’s flying in Pittsburgh. Bastille Day comes just ten days after our Independence Day, and it’s a good day to remember that Pittsburgh was French before it was English, and that there would be no United States of America without Lafayette, de Grasse, and the other French heroes of our revolution.
A Pittsburgh house celebrates liberté, égalité, fraternité.
This year the Artists’ Market has spread from Fort Duquesne Boulevard all the way along the Rachel Carson or Ninth Street Bridge. The extra room makes the festival feel even more open and inviting.
Yesterday’s Rosary March comes up Sixth Avenue. It’s not a very good picture, but old Pa Pitt was not expecting this colorful procession, and did what he could in the seconds he had to record the event from the window of a moving vehicle.
This year the Artists’ Market was moved to Fort Duquesne Boulevard, which felt much less claustrophobic than last year’s location on Penn Avenue. To judge by the crowds, it was a big success.
Thirty years ago, Squonk Opera was a struggling alternative band performing in the standard struggling-local-band venues. But at some point early on, the group discovered that they could actually succeed by rebranding themselves as performance artists and getting commissions from arts organizations. Since then the “wacky provincial opera company,” now calling itself just Squonk, has been a regular at artsy events all over the world, but especially the Three Rivers Arts Festival.
Squonk will be performing Hand to Hand on Sunday, June 11, at 2:00 p.m. and again at 4:00 p.m. They claim that these are the world’s largest puppet hands, and who is going to argue?
This year the Arts Festival has taken over Penn Avenue and cross streets in the Cultural District.
Heinz Hall, the home of the Pittsburgh Symphony, began its life as a 1920s movie palace. Although the decorative scheme was subdued somewhat in the restoration, there is still a strong element of fantasy in the interior.
