Posts by Ben Vila

If you’re feeling particularly gratuitous and/or generous today between 12 and 2 pm, stop by the Chancellor’s Dining Room in the Ratty and leave Ruth Simmons a video message at the “Ruth Booth”…. and maybe donate some money to the Annual Fund, too. This is a great opportunity to show Ruth your appreciation, wear your T(ruth) t-shirt and let her know how much of a boss you think she is. Representatives from the Brown Annual Fund will be standing by to provide information and answer questions about the Million Dollar Milestone: A Record for Ruth. If the fund gets a record-setting 34,317 donors to make gifts this year, the Corporation has promised to contribute an additional $1 million.  

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It can be way too easy sometimes to get trapped in the College Hill bubble. A fun trip off campus every now and then can be a good break from all the goings on at Brown. I say, go see live music!

When it comes to bands on tour, Providence may not have the big-city draw of say New York, Philly, or Boston, but between Providence and Pawtucket we still have a decent number of concerts coming up. Already this fall, we’ve had, among others, Deer Tick, Das Racist, Tiesto and Girl Talk play shows nearby. For all you live music fans out there, I’ve scoured the interwebs and compiled a list of some of the upcoming concerts close to campus and others in the surrounding area. Boston’s only an hour train ride away. The latest train back to Providence is usually 11:10 pm though, which sucks. If you want to make sure you see the whole show, you should probably figure out somewhere to stay for the night.

Providence and Pawtucket:

Neon Indian and Kreayshawn
Thursday November 3 – Peterson Recreation Center, Providence College – free or $5 ???
“Chillwave” band and that girl walking around campus with a baggie full of Adderalls.

Shwayze and Cisco Adler
Friday November 4 – Lupo’s – $15 advance, $20 day of
They had the world buzzin’ in 2008. They even had a show on MTV.

Josh Groban
Wednesday November 9 – Dunkin’ Donuts Center, Providence, RI – $21.50
Dreamy opera singer. [Read more →]

Remember middle school dances? The ones where no one really knew how to grind yet and just kinda danced around in circles? We were young, naïve, and just wanted to have a good time, albeit an awkward time. We were tweens. Maybe it’s because college makes me feel old, but recently I’ve been remembering those middle school days and rediscovering some of the great/funny rap songs of not-so-long ago. Here are a few helpful suggestions for some classic pre-game music this weekend. Enjoy the nostalgia and the ridiculous music videos.

Jagged Edge feat Nelly “Where the Party At”

Don’t you just wish you could parachute yourself onto a beach resort sometimes? Where is that Bacardi anyway?  [Read more →]

Yesterday at 5 pm, in solidarity with Occupy movements all over the world, thousands of protestors met at Burnside Park next to Kennedy Plaza and proceeded to march around the city of Providence. Among them were a few dozen students from Brown University. With the help of the Providence police department, traffic was blocked off on certain roads so protestors could pass through. The march passed by Providence Place Mall, the State capital building, then ended up back at Burnside Park. People of all different ages, ethnicities, and socioeconomic backgrounds came together to show our country’s and our world’s leaders that people are fed up with the current political and financial system. The official occupation of Burnside Park began last night and will continue indefinitely.

(We apologize in advance for the blurriness of some of the photos, shit got a little nuts at times).  [Read more →]

At 4:30 yesterday afternoon, members of Occupy Providence met at Burnside Park to march up the hill to Brown’s Main Green. Protesters carried signs, played make-shift instruments, and chanted things like “we are the 99%, you are the 99%” and “banks got bailed out, we got sold out.” Passing drivers honked their horns and cheered out their windows in support. With Brown Police standing by, Occupy Providence paraded under Faunce Arch and filed into a packed Salomon DeCiccio Auditorium to attend the Teach-In for Occupy College Hill. Occupy Providence has since released its first mission statement to the public.

Remember that book that all of us freshmen bonded over our mutual dislike of? No, not Twilight. I’m talking about Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China by Leslie Chang. People like to be down on the First Readings seminars, but try to think back to all the things you liked about Factory Girls: the deeply compelling stories of Min and Chunming, their adventures in and around Dongguan and the intertwining vignettes of Chinese history and the author’s own family story.

For those of you who haven’t seen the thousands of posters on bathrooms and bulletin boards already, Leslie Chang herself will be visiting campus tomorrow for a First Readings Lecture. She will be speaking about her difficulties writing the book, what she learned while writing it and the changes that have taken place in the characters’ lives and the Dongguan factory world since the book was published. This is an amazing opportunity to hear an author talk about her book in her own words, especially since it’s a book that we all read and put so much time and energy into thinking about. The lecture takes place tomorrow, Tuesday October 11, at 4 pm in Salomon 101.

If you passed by the Main Green yesterday around noon you probably noticed a large circle of people gathered on the grass. Over 75 students, faculty and local residents all came out in solidarity with College Student Walk Out Day, in which students across the country skipped class to gather in public places at 12 pm. The stated purpose of the gathering was to discuss future plans for a growing offshoot of Occupy Wall Street called Occupy Providence. The conversation started out with discussion on the Occupy Wall Street protests and later shifted to a debate on whether or not the Brown community should join forces with Occupy Providence. There was also the option of creating separate Occupy Brown or Occupy College Hill organizations. Another gathering was held at 2 pm on campus.

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Coming to Brown has been a huge learning experience for me – new places, new people, and new ideas. This new knowledge is all good and grand but the most fascinating things I’ve been learning around campus are all the new vocabulary words. I’m not talking about dumb, fancy words like “hegemony”, “post-modernism”, or “agency”, I’m talkin’ ‘bout tha slang. I never thought about slang very much back home, but coming here has opened my ears to the many interesting regional bastardizations variations of the English language. Here is a short portion of Brown’s very own “urban” dictionary:

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