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What's Happening This Week
Still no title for this thing, sadly. Nevertheless we plug on. Please send your feedback, tips and more feedback to matthewrlawrence@gmail.com.
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Monday - 8:40PM
'71
Avon Cinema, 260 Thayer Street
$10.50
An estimated 3,600 people were killed in The Troubles, the thirty-year Northern Ireland conflict. Heavyhanded British authorities tortured and starved Irish prisoners while Irish paramilitary groups wreaked havoc on the general population. (I'm simplifying; it was more horrible than that.)
The conflict centered around Belfast, a city that's only a little larger than Providence. Yann Demange's '71 condenses the conflict into one single night, when a riot strands one English soldier (Jack O'Connell) on the streets of the Northern Irish capital.
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Tuesday - 5:30PM
micro-memoir!
Providence Athenaeum, 251 Benefit Street
I promise not to promote my own events any more than is reasonably necessary, but this one's kind of a big deal: it's the final installment of micro-memoir! at the Providence Athenaeum. In just two hours you will learn how to write, edit, and then share personal 200 word narratives. Don't worry, the room will be full of supportive and equally nervous strangers. There's no reason to faint or get the jitters, but if you do snacks and wine will be handy. I'm actually leading the workshop for the first time, so I'll probably be the most nervous of all. The writing primer starts at 5:30, but arrive at 5 to meet your fellow memoirists.
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Wednesday - 9:00PM
Public Speaking / Insect Factory
Machines With Magnets
400 Main Street, Pawtucket
$8
Public Speaking is the sometimes incidental, sometimes melodic project by New York multi-instrumentalist Jason Anthony Harris, who incorporates radio, tape recorders, and found sounds into his music. Insect Factory, is a solo project by Maryland drone guitarist John Howard. Both musicians will be twiddling knobs and tapping loop effects pedals, probably while looking downward. They're joined by local soloists House Red ("all vocals all the time") and Domestique, the new performance piece by the crafty Ricky Katowicz.
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Thursday - 7:00PM
a.vanishing.point
AS220 Black Box, 95 Empire Street
$15
Passive Aggressive Novelty Company sounds like the name of an improv troupe, but actually it's the brainchild of Providence-based dance/performance artist Andy Russ. a.vanishing.point incorporates dance and theater elements into a one-man performance piece that's probably more interesting in person than on paper. (On paper it sounds like a sestina.) Here are some words from a press release about this week's premiere performance: "A chair, a book, a body, an ocean, a gesture, a song - these elements are repeated, rearranged and turned inside out, ignoring narrative logic in favor of “meaning” that is gained or lost within the resonance between sensory combinations."
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Friday
Radha May: When The Towel Drops Vol. 1
Granoff Center, 154 Angell Street
It's the final day for the 35 millimeter film installation looping across three floors of Brown's Granoff Center. The artist Radha May's anthology features scenes of female sexuality that were deemed too explicit for Italian cinemagoers and abandoned on 1950s cutting room floors. The footage, which includes scenes from Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni, was compiled at the Cineteca di Bologna last year by Radha May, three artists who refer to themselves as one singular being. Many of the scenes have never been shown publicly before, and they can be viewed at the Granoff on one very small screen.
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Saturday - 2:00PM
The Concorde...Airport '79
Cranston Public Library, 140 Sockanosset Cross Road
I recently witnessed a charmless woman and her bratty son trying to smuggle two small dogs through a TSA checkpoint. They failed. Had they seen The Concorde...Airport '79, the oddly punctuated film in which Charo is caught trying to do that very thing, they might have picked up some pointers. Screening as part of Cranston Public Library's Unreeled series, this amazingly campy film features George Kennedy and Alain Delon as co-pilots of a needle-nosed airplane that evil Robert Wagner tries to sabotage, over and over again. Ed Begley, Jr., Cicely Tyson, and a saxophone playing Jimmie Walker co-star as some of the many passengers.
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Sunday - 2:00PM
Bruce Da Silva
Providence Public Library, 150 Empire Street
In a Rhode Island governed by an Arlene Violet stand-in, aging investigative reporter Liam Mulligan solves murders while battling the scummy publishers at his dying newspaper. Edgar Award-winning mystery writer Bruce Da Silva draws from what he knows: he worked at the Providence Journal for many years. It's also easy to visualize Mulligan as a clone of his cigar chomping, fedora wearing creator. A Scourge of Vipers, the fourth Mulligan novel, comes out this week, and it sees Mulligan embroiled in the shady world of sports gambling. Providence Public Library is hosting a release for the book.
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