Brown University has received an award of $15.5 million from the National Science Foundation for the purpose of creating a mathematics research institute, the eighth of its kind in the country. The Institute for Computational and Experimental Research in Mathematics will be located on South Main Street and will be headed by mathematics professor Jill Pipher — a girl!

ICERM will leverage internationally recognized programs in applied and pure mathematics and computer science to create long-term research programs and scholarly conferences to attract the world’s best minds in computation and experimental math. It is another step forward in Rhode Island’s development of a knowledge economy.

Hooray, more smart people around town. The image here is the visual expression of a Mandelbrot set defined as,

. . .  the set of complex values of c for which the orbit of 0 under iteration of the complex quadratic polynomial zn+1 = zn2 + c remains bounded. That is, a complex number, c, is in the Mandelbrot set if, when starting with z0 = 0 and applying the iteration repeatedly, the absolute value of zn never exceeds a certain number (that number depends on c) however large n gets.

But you already knew that. Groovy Mandelbrot videos after the jump.

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This is something of a ’save the date’ notification. Not About the Buildings is holding its Fourth Annual Spelling Bee on Monday, June 21st, from 9pm to 11-ish.

Not About The Buildings’ most popular event is also our biggest fundraiser. 36 spellers will compete for fame and glory and fabulous prizes, but even non-spellers can win big by betting on the right speller. Prizes to be announced soon. Sign up at the door. $5 to compete, free to watch.

Droll Dose contributor and resident Eurovision aficionado, Matthew Lawrence, is the perennial Master of Ceremonies. He has a particular white summer suit he breaks out for the occasion — very dapper. The event will be held at AS220. For all the details, and to rsvp, go to Facebook. Too chicken to participate? Sit in the audience and kibbitz. . . kibitz. . . drink. (Note to Matthew: Just skip the Yiddish.)

[Scripps National Spelling Bee is being broadcast on ABC television, tonight Friday, 8pm to 10pm]

Farm City, City Farm: Tales in Urban Farming from Farmer-Author Novella Carpenter and Farmer Rich Pederson

Join Southside Community Land Trust and Slow Food RI for a evening of stories — trials, tribulations, and triumphs — from two talented urban farmers; Novella Carpenter, author of Farm City: the Education of an Urban Farmer, and Rich Pederson, Southside Community Land Trust’s City Farm Farm Manager.

Novella and Rich will take turns sharing their urban agriculture experiences with us. Their unique perspectives have been influenced by each of their environments; Novella’s in Oakland, California, and Rich’s here in Providence. They’ll follow their storytelling with an audience question and answer period, which is sure to be entertaining and informative — and quite likely very funny as well.

A $10 donation ($5 for college students) is requested. Funds will support programs at Southside Community Land Trust and Slow Food RI.

Thursday, 7pm, First Unitarian Church, 1 Benevolent Street

AS220 has six to eight openings available for a new course being offered in conjunction with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Equipment has been purchased through the MIT Fab Labs program and you can learn how to use it. According to the ProJo,

Participants can learn how to use and create long-term projects using the lab’s machines, which include a small-scale laser cutter, a milling machine and a vinyl cutter, all of which are hooked up to a computer network that offers free open-access design software.

The course, now to be held at the Empire Street location and later to expand into the Mercantile Building, will include open labs, videoconferencing to MIT, but sadly, no fish tacos. For more info contact Fab Lab director Shawn Wallace (not to be confused with Wallace Shawn) at AS220.org where there is actually no mention of this whatsoever, but maybe that is your first test.

And glorious:

Session’s out for somewhere between 2 and 28 weeks, so they say…

If you haven’t been by the Dirt Palace’s front window in a while it is time to take a look. Safety School by Joe and Will Buzzell fills the window with what at first seems to be nothing more than traffic signs strewn about. But as you get closer you can see that in fact the piece is littered with bits of very important information. Small signs contain information about different social services, some public some private, that low income households could find useful. I think it is the selflessness and pure practicality that makes this window so charming.

Safety School will be up until late July.

In a small, unassuming room located close to the main entrance of Robert’s Hall, Rhode Island College’s Performing Arts building–past the auditorium, past the ticket box office–exists the college’s own exhibition space for art.  Here, at the Bannister Gallery, you will find paintings and sculpture by RIC students, faculty, alumni, and visiting artists.

Bannister’s current exhibition includes work from Jamey Morrill, Michael Cochran and Ernest Jolicoeur, all of whom are RIC adjunct faculty. The work ranges from Jolicoeur’s vivid multi-canvas abstract paintings to Michael Cochran’s subtle gold leaf sculptures and works on paper.

As you enter the room the first things that you notice are the green and red larvae-inspired sculptures resting on the floor in an indefinite pattern.  These sculptures, created by Jamey Morrill, encourage the viewer to sit down at their level to view the intricate patterns created by thread and the reflections of light that subtly dance across the translucent surface of the bottles. These sculptures are made of recycled materials: green plastic soda bottles, nails, and red thread.

Summer Adjunct Faculty Exhibition: Two Sculptors and a Painter runs June 4th-30th.

Monday - Wednesday, 11:00 am - 5:00 pm
Thursday - 12:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Friday - Closed
Weekends & Holidays - Closed

The West End is a food insecure neighborhood. What does that mean? It means that it is extremely difficult to get fresh, healthy food in the blocks west of the highway. There are few grocery stores around, and our bodegas and corner stores have only so much space for fruits and veggies.

Luckily for all of the West Side residents, local farmers have been making a point of coming to our ‘hood and selling fresh food for several growing seasons at the Armory Park Farmers’ Market. They’ve been providing us with all the kale, salad greens, peppers, etc. our bodies can handle every Thursday, right along Parade Street, during the summer and fall. This farmers’ market gets more and more successful every year. These farmers deserve your gratitude, and your food dollars, for their commitment to the neighborhood.

Today, Thursday June 4, is the opening day of the Armory Park Farmers’ Market! Stop by every Thursday, from 3pm to 7pm, for locally grown, delicious food. Stop by and thank your farmer, buy some mint for the mojitos you’ll make this Saturday, and then head over to David’s fundraiser at Nick-A-Nees. Duh.

So you think you’re so smart? Tonight is the Pub Quiz at the Wild Colonial Tavern.  There are several categories like current events, local trivia, famous Irish things, Shatner, the Byzantine Empire, and it always ends with a 12-question music category with audio snippets.   Form a team of one to four people, eat, drink and write your answers down on a piece of paper and hand it in. It’s all explained as you go along. There are cool prizes for win, place and show.

Sunday, starts 8pm, 250 South Water Street, 621.5644

Tomorrow, Thursday May 14th, Dan Deacon in all of his glory will be playing a daytime show at RISD Market Square. Deacon is touring with an eighteen piece band for his latest album “Bromst” and will be making a stop in Providence. Wait there’s more! Deacon and his eighteen piece band will be joining with Providence’s own What Cheer? Brigade and they will all be doing Dan Deacon songs! This thirty plus piece sound machine will be winning over hearts and minds starting at 11:30am.

Thursday May 14th, RISD Market Square, 11:30am, FREE.

There’s a new sound taking over the town known as Boston. If you’re by
the banks of the Charles River as the moon glows over the muddy waters
you very well may hear some thick, groovy beats banging out a trail
for raw guitar licks and a soul-drenched Hammond organ. Yes indeed,
ladies and gentleman who are down with the funk, the rock and the
soul, you have your new favorite band: Otis Grove.

Otis Grove began as a collective experiment in crossing the
traditional jazz sound with funk and Hip-Hop rhythms. It was the
beginning of a sound based in groove, free in improvisation, yet
rooted in songwriting and soulful melodies. The music, which has
evolved into a unique blend of soulful organ funk and garage rock,
pays tribute to the masters while consistently pushing itself in new
directions.

Six years, over 500 national shows, and one UK tour later; Otis Grove is hitting it harder then ever. The trio - known for their high-energy, dance inducing, dynamic live performances - signed with Ropeadope Digital records in early 2008 and is scheduled to play Providence’s Tazza Cafe on Friday, April 10th 2009. Their one of a kind live performance is not to be missed so check it out!

Tazza Cafe

250 Westminster St.

Providence, RI

$5

For more information about Otis Grove, visit their website:
http://www.otisgrove.net or http://www.myspace.com/otisgrove

More Otis Grove links:

http://www.ropeadope.com/music/record/crank_it_up/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjBeQw9P464

If you don’t recognize this man then just move along, because to crossword puzzle solvers, this man is God.  Others may know Will Shortz, the crossword puzzle editor of The New York Times, from the movie Wordplay and he has even acquired that cool, cultural notch in the belt, a cameo on The Simpsons.

And now he’s coming to Providence! Brown University is holding a tournament today for crossword puzzle solvers. It is free and open to the general public. There will be different competitive groupings. No need to pre-register, you can just show up. For more info contact: puzzlingassociation@gmail.com.

Big thanks to Natan Last and all the organizers at Brown — this is the kind of thing that makes it fun living in a college town.

1:30pm, Saturday, MacMillan Room 117, across from Soldiers’ Arch on Thayer Street

Okay I know that this has already been mentioned but I am just reminding everyone out there that tonight at Firehouse 13 Japanther, What Cheer? Brigade, Ninjasonik, and Math The Band will be performing. Japanther (a super nice drum and guitar and loop duo/ardent Proviphiles) happen to be one of my all time favorite live shows, and What Cheer? Brigade is a damn close second. Check it out!

$8, 8pm, Firehouse 13, 41 Central Street, off Elmwood Avenue