TALES FROM THE GRAVEYARD

If The Orbit spent any more time in the cemetery, we’d be dead! Not all the exciting stuff happens above the ground–although that’s still where we’ve been hanging out. Cemeteries have such an abundance of strange curiosities and interesting stories, in fact, that we turned the tenth month of the year into “Cemetober.”

STEP BEAT: PITTSBURGH CITY STEPS

The city of Pittsburgh has some 750 sets of public staircases or “city steps.” Nearly every neighborhood has some. We won’t get to all of them, but we’re trying to make it to the more interesting of the lot.

THE PIZZA CHASE: WEIRD PIZZA

The Pizza Chase isn’t about locating the best pizza, it’s interested in the uniquest pizza. The Pittsburgh area is blessed with a bunch of oddball places that do something fundamentally different with cheese, sauce, and dough, and we’re going to try to figure out who, what, where, how, and why. We’ll leave when (and if) to you.

STREET ART

Linoleum tiles embedded in downtown macadam and a stretch of road used to conduct Dept. of Public Works line painting tests vie for the title of “the most street of art,” but we’re of course fans of all the more standard stuff: creative graffiti, stencils, wheat-paste, accidental collage, etc.

Black and Gold: Strange acts of sports fandom

Pittsburgh Skyline

WEIRD RELIGION

Supposedly Pittsburgh has the highest per-capita population of Catholics in America. That means that even a pagan blogger feels the spirit–at least when it comes with sides of halushki and macaroni & cheese. Eastern Orthodox onion domes, Catholic rites, crazy person graffiti–there has been plenty of source material, and we’re just getting started.

THE OVER-THE-WALL CLUB

If The Orbit is about anything, it’s the big circus tent of curiosity. Who’s that? Why is that there? What’s on the other side? The Over-the-Wall Club ponders these mundane mysteries and subjects its visitors to its musings. If you can’t handle it, stay on the other side, jack.

CYCLING AND BICYCLE-RELATED STUFF

The Orbit staff is pro-bicycle. We try to do as much reporting as we can on two wheels and get real excited about things like new bike lanes and the Healthy Ride bike share program.

GHOST HOUSES and GHOST SIGNS

Collections of photos and ramblings on the paired endangered species of ghost houses (imprints of one no longer standing house on one that is still here) and “ghost signs” (the long-gone practice of painted wall advertisements, still visible, but inevitably with a ticking clock).

ORBIT DAY TRIPS

Notable places that are an hour or two drive from the city. Far enough to no longer count as metro Pittsburgh, but close enough to be in striking distance or “Pittsburgh region.”

Sad Toys

ORBIT OBITS: THINGS THAT AIN’T THERE NO MORE

Hey: you can’t make a salad without deep-frying a potato, right? Even in a place where a developmental spirit of “benign neglect” rules, not everything sticks around. These are some favorites that shuffled off the mortal coil in the short time we’ve been citizen-journaling.