Head over to Smitty-B and join director John Cameron Mitchell (the “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” guy) for a screening of his 2006 film “Shortbus” — Q & A to follow.  This is what The New York Times had to say.

As utopian visions go, it doesn’t get much better than “Shortbus,” a film in which all you need is love — and sex, lots and lots of mutually, sometimes collectively, pleasurable sex. John Cameron Mitchell wrote and directed, though orchestrated might be the better word for a carnivalesque romp in which men and women engage in sex in a multitude of creative combinations. An ode to the joy and sweet release of sex…

What could I possibly add to that?

(Update: I guess I do have to add something.  According to one commenter Mr. Mitchell will not attend this screening.  The press release from Brown indicated that he would.)

Tuesday, 7:30pm, Room 106, Smith-Buonanno Hall, Meeting Street (east of Brown Street), Brown University

The Brown Sustainable Food Initiative presents the second half of the Food and Climate Change Series: A Lecture by Anna Lappé. Lappé is a bestselling author known for her research and writing on food politics, globalization, and social change. Her first book, Hope’s Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet (2002), co-authored with her mother Frances Moore Lappé, describes social movements to end hunger throughout the developing world. Her second book, Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen, promotes the value of eating sustainable food and serves as a  practical guide for its preparation. A Brown graduate, Ms. Lappé is currently working on her third book, Eat the Sky, which is due out in 2010 and will focus on the connection between food and climate change.

Tonight (Monday) at 7pm, Salomon 001, Brown University

Are we cool with this?  I am always suspicious when Brown University starts making alterations to the landscape.  Why are they cutting down perfectly healthy trees on Arlington Avenue?  Is this to give residents a better view of the eye-poaching Kleig lights that go nova for sporting events? Do they have evil designs on this side of the historic Dexter Asylum wall since their plans to destroy the Hope Street side were foiled?  I am particularly suspicious since they have recently planted some 10-foot trees in the area and they will say they have ‘replaced’ the mature trees they are cutting down.  How far down the wall are they going? Aren’t we trying to increase the tree canopy in the city?

(Update: City Councilman Cliff Wood has looked into this and put my fears to rest (this was just a couple of trees). He has spoken with City Forester Doug Still who speaks highly of the Brown University tree program, so that is reassuring.  My thanks to both Mr. Still and Mr. Wood for the quick response.)

Brown’s Focus On Africa series is packing it in this week with a lunchtime screening at The Watson Institute for International Relations. South African documentarist and filmmaker Khalo Matabane, who’s mini series When We Were Black, screens at 12pm (pt.1) and 6pm (pt.2), will conduct a discussion of his work at 7pm following the second screening in the Institute’s Joukowsky Forum at 111 Thayer St.

This evening Brown’s Department of Africana Studies continues its post-election week run of free public events with contemporary Black intellectuals and artists. Shola Lynch, a young filmmaker who in 2004 completed a documentary on the legendary Shirley Chisholm, will be joined by Ray Watson of the Mt. Hope Neighborhood Association and renowned professor of Africana Studies, and author of the seminal Black Noise, Tricia Rose. It all goes down for FREE at Salomon Hall on Brown’s main green at 7pm.

We’re still not at the point where we can say, unequivocally, that our potential vps know that Africa is a continent and not a country, but at least we have a local university president who is interested in bringing scholars and artists from all over said continent to our fair city. Brown’s Department of Africana Studies, along with The Office of The President, have kept esteemed novelist Ngügï wa Thiong’o in Providence for the better part of a week, hosting several forums for the community. Today at 6pm Professor Ngügï, as he likes to be called, will read from his sensational new book, The Wizard of the Crow. The reading, which takes place at 324 Brook St. in MacMillan Hall’s Starr Auditorium, is FREE and open to the public.

Brown’s Rites & Reason Theatre is one of three Black Theaters in Providence (Black Rep and Pawtucket’ Mixed Magic being the other two). R&R has been developing and producing new work by students in Brown’s RPM (Research To Performance) playwriting classes since the 1970s and is the region’s oldest continually producing Black Theatre. That’s not to say R&R doesn’t explode the mold of Black Theatre, producing pieces an out of time retelling of the history of Hawaiian statehood on the eve of Pearl Harbor’s 60th anniversary.

The Forgetting Machine, written by Emma Chung-Ming Tai, and directed by Connie Crawford, with artistic direction by Professor Elmo Terry-Morgan, takes place Thursday October 23, 2008 through Sunday, November 2^nd, 2008. Performances on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays take place at 7 pm and on Sundays at 3pm, Rites and Reason Theatre in the George Houston Bass Performing Arts Space, Brown University, Churchill House, 155 Angell St. Providence. Sunday matinees will be followed by FolkThought, the Rites and Reason signature post play discussions. There is a suggested donation of $10 collected at the door. Reservations may be made 401-863-3558 and forgetting_machine@Brown.edu. All are invited.

Photo: Kai Morrel and Noam Dorr in Emma Chung’s “The Forgetting Machine”

Heroin users have always been a notoriously hard group to mobilize, but you would think the cokeheads could have pushed this through by now. I kid — this is an important issue for all citizens.  The Brown University chapter of Students for a Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) sponsored a lecture last night featuring Jeffrey A. Miron, libertarian economist and Director of Undergraduate Studies at Harvard University.  Mr. Miron is the author of Drug War Crimes: The Consequences of Prohibition; his particular focus last night was contrasting the libertarian approach (complete legalization of all drugs) with that of liberals (some marijuana is okay sometimes, but the other stuff should be controlled). 

Coming from the basic libertarian stance that the government should not be involved in your choices as long as third parties are not harmed, Miron made a compelling argument for complete legalization (at which time he thinks he’d like to try it!). He was smart, funny and persuasive; big ups to Greg Anderson for organizing this interesting event.  (And if anyone from the Brown tech crew is reading this, there’s a microphone in the List Auditorium that needs Viagra.)

John Krasinski, Brown class of 2001, appears at 9pm tonight in the season opener of The Office.  Just think… he once walked these streets… went to the Avon… ate at Spike’s… crossed against the light…

Opens today!

Brown University Farmers’ Market 

Every Wednesday, 11am-2pm

Wriston Quad, just off of Thayer and George St.

Featuring fruits, veggies, cheese, bread, honey, cookies, pies, coffee, and more from RI growers and producers.

How did you spend your summer?

A couple lucky Brown students made a cool ten bucks an hour working with the University and Wal-Mart to install CFL (compact fluorescent lamp) lightbulbs for FREE all around the city for middle and low income households.

It’s called project 20/20, and you might be able to still get in on the action. Tipster J writes:

i got it done and it was RAD. also the number is 401 863 7976 or email them at proj2020@gmail.com

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It’s official — chimps are smarter than college students (wonder if they know how to cross the street).

A few chimpanzees in Japan have been trained to count to nine by touching Arabic numerals, in order, on a computer screen. They can even do this after seeing the numbers scrambled across the screen for a fraction of a second, after which the number are covered but remain in their original location — and they do this better than college students.

Wow. You mean to tell me this kid was walking the streets of Providence for four years and I never noticed him?

This month’s Vanity Fair has a ‘Fashion Rocks’ supplement featuring Dhani Harrison modeling this fall’s very cool hippie/bohemian look. (Yes, those are furs, do not write to me. I do not buy, wear or trap small animals.) But I think we can all agree, no DNA test needed to determine this guy’s paternity. Yikes.

This is sure to mean a tourism bonanza!

In recent years, Providence has not only seen a new convention center and a revitalized waterfront, but historic corridors have also been restored to their Revolutionary-era glory, giving the Rhode Island capital an architectural sense of place. But these cultural trappings, more commonly associated with overcrowded metropolises, have not caused this city of 200,000, near the banks of Narragansett Bay, to lose its small-town flavor. Drivers still request their initials on license plates, sandwich shops let regulars run a tab and Mayor David N. Cicilline greets residents by name and lists his home number in the phone book.

For the record, the Times ended their Friday and Saturday nights at the Black Rep and Local 121, which sounds pretty true-to-life. And did you know that the original State House, “where, in 1776, Rhode Islanders declared independence two months before the rest of the country,” used to be on Benefit Street?

Espresso at Caffe Dolce Vita, brunch at Nick’s on Broadway, and dinner, oh so predictably, at Al Forno. Sounds like a typical weekend!

by: Lissa Jean

Yesterday, the New York Times ran an article about college grads who don’t leave town once they’re done suckling from the teat of higher education, and guess what? Brown/RISD students took center stage. From start to finish, the entire piece is tinged with an air of quiet desperation, and you get the feeling the author interviewed these kids out of sheer pity.

Based on this article, if you’re a Brown/RISD grad living in Providence, you’re probably:

1) A directionless yuppie, content to mooch off your parents while you pursue half-hearted artistic projects, like playing in a noise band or making documentaries about the Providence dating scene.

2) Living in self-imposed squalor. See: Abandoned mills, former potato factories, hovels beneath the interstate, etc.

3) Earning extra cash by “milling soap, making cheese or working as a nann[y] for professors’ children.” Churning butter, sheering sheep and sewing patchwork bonnets are also acceptable odd jobs. A basic rule of thumb: it’s always cool to emulate the Amish.

More on this article after the jump. more »

By: Lissa Jean

Remember the good ol’ days? When a crooked doctor could pocket thousands of dollars from a sleazy drug company, and not worry about attracting the attention of Congress?

Well, according to several pharma blogs those innocent times are coming to and end. The Senate Finance Committee is preparing to investigate Dr. Martin Keller, Brown’s head of psychiatry, for plump payoffs he received while researching the antidepressant Paxil. This is just the latest piece of bad news for Keller, whose reputation was recently shredded in “Side Effects,” Alison Bass’s new book about the dirty business of mood elevators.

After such a downer month, I imagine Keller might be tempted to pop a few happy pills. There’s kind of a sweet irony in that, don’t you think?

More info about the investigation after the jump

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