Another Trip Through Another Kind of Monday

As per my reading resolutions, I’ve been revisiting books I read in my childhood. My latest trip down memory lane took me back to Another Kind of Monday by William E. Coles, Jr.

The Pittsburgh-set young adult novel opens at the fictional Moorland High School library.  Our protagonist, Mark, finds three crisp hundred dollar bills in the library’s copy of Great Expectations. Along with the money is a note from a mysterious benefactor inviting Mark on a scavenger hunt that takes him all over the city—a steel mill in Braddock, the observatory on the North Side, an abandoned church in East Liberty.  As the clues become more difficult to solve, the amount of money that Mark is rewarded increases.  Eventually, the clues request that he enlist the help of a “co-quester,” someone of the opposite sex and with whom he is not already friends. I remember the ending confused me when I was a high schooler reading it.  I won’t spoil it, but it still confused me, almost ten years later.

Just the dreamy quality of the title has stuck with me ever since I read it in high school.  It’s possible that part of my enjoyment comes from the fact that I know every location mentioned, from Highland Park to Morningside.  I instantly wanted to go to each place and dig for buried treasure.  Maybe I’ll reread it with a pen and paper handy to map out each site go on my own scavenger hunt. It’s almost like if John Green’s Paper Towns had been set in Pittsburgh.

Reading it now, however, gives me another added delight as CLP – Main is featured heavily as a place Mark goes to research and decipher the clues left behind by the benefactor. The Pennsylvania Department and CLP – South Side make appearances as well.

Aside from the mystery aspect of the book, it also serves as a mini-history lesson; it touches on all aspects of Pittsburgh’s past, from the Homestead Steel Strike to the life of John Brashear to the story of Katherine Soffel and Ed and Jack Biddle, which was popularized in the 1984 movie Mrs. Soffel.

Published in 1996, some of the book is dated (there’s a Michael Jordan reference). If it were published today, Mark could just search Google—or any of our fine databases—to solve the clues.  But I liked the fact that he had to do physical research. He is assisted by a friendly librarian—is there really any other kind?—cleverly named Mrs. Harbinger.

As far as young adult novels set in Pittsburgh, I’d rank it behind The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.  Still, it’s a quick read and it’s the perfect book to elevate a boring Monday to another kind of Monday.

Have you read the book or do you have a favorite Pittsburgh-set young adult novel? Let us know in the comments!

–Ross

On Reading 100 Books (Actually, more like 50)

On January 21, 2014, I shared this picture on social media with the accompanying caption positing that I would attempt to read one hundred books during the year.

I’m so artsty it makes me sick.

Almost as soon as my fingers pounded out the goal, I realized that reading one hundred books was out of the question; it was already practically February.  So instead I said that reading fifty would be more likely.  I don’t have a calculator in front of me, but that’s like one every week or something.

As of writing this, I’ve read fifty-one books and am on my way toward finishing number fifty-two.

Now, I realize that this isn’t a great accomplishment by any means.  Still, I was impressed with myself for setting a goal and achieving it.  While I’ve always enjoyed reading–I do work at a public library after all–there was something almost stifling about knowing that I had to finish this goal.  In fact, almost as soon as I posted the picture, one of my friends commented that it’s better to keep the goals that you set to yourself because announcing the goals tricks your mind into thinking they have already been completed.

There were many times when I started reading a book and just couldn’t get into it, and wanted to stop.  For instance, I started reading The King in Yellow after watching True Detective over the summer, but I didn’t finish it until early December.  That’s outrageous! The book is only 256 pages.  I should have been able to knock that out in a weekend.  So I set it aside and read other books.  All the while I had this nagging feeling in the back of my head that the time I put into reading those hundred or so pages would be worthless unless I finished the book in its entirety.

So I pressed on toward my goal’s end.  I knew I had to, but it wasn’t just because I’d already put it out there on the Internet. I had to do it because if I don’t finish a book, I feel like I’m disrespecting the author.

When I first take a book in my hands, open the cover and feel the paper, crisp and dry between my fingers, I’m entering into an agreement with that author and into a relationship with that book.  For however many pages, I belong to that book and it belongs to me. When I put it down, even for a few days, I feel like we’ve abandoned each other. By not being interesting or not grabbing my attention, the book has recanted its agreement with me.

A recent study showed that putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, such as when you read fiction, improves your ability to show compassion.  Maybe that’s why I have trouble abandoning those books—because I know inside those pages, I’m someone else, maybe even someone better, if only for 300 or so pages.

Please save your psychoanalyses until the end, thankyouverymuch.

I’ve listed the fifty-one books on the next three pages, broken into three categories:  Good, Godawful and Great (because I like alliteration. If I liked assonance, I’d call them All Right, Awful and Amazing).  I briefly thought about ranking them, but then I realized that my rankings would do nothing to sway you if you’d already read a particular book and loved it and vice versa.  All I can say is that I highly recommend all the ones that I’ve put in the Great category.

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Hollywood of the East: A Top Ten List of Pittsburgh-filmed Movies

With Josh Boone’s adaptation of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars opening in theaters across the country today, the long history that Pittsburgh has with film continues to grow. In case you didn’t know, the movie was filmed around here last year in places like Oakmont, Bellevue and a soundstage in the Strip, just to name a few spots. Sadly, this isn’t a review of that film. I guess I’m not a prolific enough reviewer yet for theaters around here to give me advanced screening tickets and whatnot.

Anyway, I’ve previously mentioned Pittsburgh’s history with film and how much I love seeing our city on film. It seems like every week a new project is green lit for Pittsburgh and I couldn’t be more excited about all of it. The city is becoming so well known for its films that bus tours of filming locations throughout the city started on May 31.

And with good reason. Seriously, our city is beautiful.

 

All the talk of tours, Foxcatcher gaining early Oscar buzz and great reviews at Cannes and Aaron Paul and Amanda Seyfried chilling at Jack’s on the South Side got me thinking about all the Pittsburgh-filmed movies I’ve seen. So if you didn’t get any advanced screening tickets like me or can’t get out to the theater this weekend to see the latest addition to Pittsburgh’s filmography, maybe you can check out one of the following.

This is my list of the top ten films filmed in and around the Pittsburgh region.

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