Emily Gilbert / Herald

As you’re watching what’s going on around the country, here’s a quick rundown on what’s happening in the realm of Brunonia and in the Ocean State.

• President Obama takes four electoral votes for his win in Rhode Island, which is typically a blue state.
• Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D) wins his first bid for reelection in Rhode Island.
• Rep. David Cicilline ’83 (D) wins in 1st congressional District, while Rep. Jim Langevin (D) wins in Rhode Island’s 2nd congressional District.
• Maggie Hassan ’80 P’15 (D) wins the New Hampshire gubernatorial race.

And now we wait for the rest of the results to roll in. We’re on the edge of our seats. Are you? Leave a comment.

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Remember those giant alien costumes from the otherworldly flash mob a few years ago? The extraterrestrial props are a product of BIG NAZO, a Providence-based art group, and it turns out they’re good not just for Spring Weekend shenanigans. The mutant puppet-creatures and robots feature prominently in a newly released music video —“Sweet Salvation” by the Stepkids, an up-and-coming neo-psychedelic soul three-piece based in Bridgeport, CT, whose self-titled debut came out last September.

The Stepkids have yet another connection close to home: bassist/keyboardist Dan Edinberg, who now lives in Brooklyn, graduated from Brown in 2002. The band played in Boston last week, opening for Kimbra on her Vows tour, and because my older sister is dating the drummer Tim Walsh, I was invited as a special guest got to tag along as a music journalist merch girl. I’ve seen them twice before, last year also in Boston on the Saturday night of Spring Weekend and this summer in New York City, but this time they outdid themselves. In addition to performing new songs, Dan casually busted out a violin for a cover of “Heart-Shaped Box” and the band wowed the audience with their live-projected kaleidoscopic light show.

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This Wednesday, October 24th, the Brown Lecture Board will be hosting a Q&A with Julie Bowen ’91. You might recognize her blonde locks and Colgate smile from ABC’s hit TV show Modern Family, where she plays Claire Dunphy, a crazy party girl turned mom of three. Bowen has won the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series two years in a row. In case you aren’t a fan of the show, here are 5 reasons you should come out and see her:

1. Claire and Phil Dunphy are the parents you wish visited on Parents Weekend. Haley, Alex, and Luke Dunphy might disagree, but Claire and Phil would be delightfully awkward meeting your college friends (and maybe your more-than-friends.)
2. Bowen proves that there is a future with an Italian Renaissance Studies concentration. Granted, what she does is in no way related to Italian Studies, but still! There’s hope! Maybe the Dunphy clan will take a summer vacay to Rome and Bowen can woo wow us with her italiano.
3. Her day job is being a mom. She couldn’t party à la Sofia Vergara after the Emmy’s because she had carpool the next morning. She has three adorable boys and is married to someone who’s not involved with Hollywood. So she’s just a normal mom, you guys! And the driver of what is probably the most fun carpool ever.
4. Her 2012 Primetime Emmy acceptance speech was basically an ode to nipple covers. Only Claire Dunphy can get away with saying nipples as many times as she did in under two minutes at the Emmys.
5. She and Sofia Vergara are friends in real life, and it warms our hearts. Bowen has openly spoken about how she has rooted for Vergara at both Emmys. Because who doesn’t want to be friends with Sofia Vergara?

But here’s the real reason you should go: Bowen is a Brown alum, and she’s reppin’ hard in Tinseltown, where she plays an amazing character in an amazing show. Basically she’s amazing, if I hadn’t already made that clear. And you can still get tickets tomorrow! Tickets will be distributed again starting at noon in the Kasper Multipurpose Room. The line might start a couple of hours earlier, though. So you might want to skip 10 a.m. section. Claire Dunphy’s worth it.

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It’s happening!

Still swooning over John Krasinski ’01′s Q&A madness last fall? If you’re a freshman and couldn’t experience this awesomeness, don’t worry, because Brown Lecture Board has done it again. Fresh off an Emmy win, Julie Bowen ’91 of “Modern Family” fame will grace us with her presence in Salomon for another Q&A on Wednesday, October 24. As per usual, you can line up in the Kasper Multipurpose Room on Monday, October 22 and Tuesday, October 23 to get tickets, which will be available beginning at 12 p.m. on both days. You know the drill: one ticket per Brown or RISD ID, and only two Brown or RISD IDs per person. Don’t get smart.

Start drafting your questions. I hope they’re something along the lines of… Can you do your Sofia Vergara impersonation plz?! (Forward to the 2:00 mark.)

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Julie Bowen ’91 has won the Best Supporting Actress Emmy award for her performance in the comedy “Modern Family.” She plays the hyper-organized, reckless driver-heckling perfectionist Claire Dunphy on the show. Her co-star Eric Stonestreet has also won the award for Best Supporting Actor in tonight’s ceremonies, which Jimmy Kimmel is hosting. Bowen, pictured above with co-star Ty Burrell, also won the award at last year’s Emmys.

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Flights, on top of flights, on top of flights. Steve Rothstein ’72, an investment banker from New York, purchased an American Airlines AAirpass in 1987 that grants him unlimited flights — whenever, wherever.  According to the NY Post, the Brown alum has tallied a staggering 10 million miles of travel over 10,000 flights; he even occasionally stops by good ole’ Geoff’s for his favorite bologna and Swiss melt (The Bobbi Riggs?) on a whim. Since 1987, Rothstein has flown to England upwards of 500 times, Tokyo 120 times and Australia 70 times. Who doesn’t enjoy airplanes?!

Recently, his AAirpass was revoked due to fraudulent activity; in many cases Rothstein would merely label his second ticket under the name ‘Bag Rothstein.’ How baller is that?  Rothstein has filed an appeal and is currently waiting for a ruling on the case. In the meantime, I hear that the automobile serves as an effective mode of transportation.

Despite our determination to “get off the hill” more often, for many a Brown student, venturing beyond our collegiate bubble and into the depths of downtown Providence is all too rare of an occurrence. Unless there’s a monster truck rally at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center or a Girl Talk concert at Lupo’s, we’re usually more than happy raiding the shelves of Spiritus and entertaining ourselves on campus.

But that didn’t stop Ethan Feirstein ’06 from taking matters into his own hands. After graduating from Brown with a degree in sociology, Ethan moved to New York briefly before returning to the Providence to open up a business of his own. Realizing the need for a downtown bar that appealed to locals and Brunonians alike, Ethan opened Salon in the winter of 2010. Since then, the bar has quickly risen to the top of the ranks, becoming one of the most popular destinations in Providence for anyone looking for a pickleback shot and a killer dance floor.

We sat down with Ethan to pick his brain about life after Brown, and to find out what it’s like being a bar owner in the PVD.

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As multiple news outlets reported this morning, Jim Yong Kim ’82 was selected as Obama’s pick to lead the World Bank. Kim, who graduated from Brown with a degree in Human Biology, went on to receive a MD and PhD from Harvard prior to becoming president of Dartmouth back in 2009. As the Herald reported earlier this month, President Simmons was also a candidate for the position.

While I’m sure President Kim achieved many great feats in his time as president, I highly doubt anything will compare to him rapping over a Black Eyed Peas track, draped in glow sticks and sporting some futuristic t-shirt situation:

A note to President Obama: we’re sorry that we keep scooping up your candidates – Christina Paxson would have been another perfect fit for the job. However, if you would like to appoint a current Brown student to one of these positions, we already have a cover letter ready for your viewing.

The odds are in your favor, Nina Jacobson '87.

The first installment of The Hunger Games trilogy premiered last night in LA. In case you’ve been living under a rock, the movie franchise is kind of a big deal. Here’s an even more exciting tidbit of information: one of the film’s producers was a Brown semiotics concentrator! Nina Jacobson ’87 was recently interviewed by Brown Alumni Mag, and the publication tweeted the article earlier today in honor of yesterday’s premiere. Alas, there was no College Hill pre-screening (that we know of…), so you’ll have to wait until March 23rd to don your Team Peeta/Team Gale shirts.

Last October, Jeffrey Eugenides ’83, author of Middlesex and The Virgin Suicides, published The Marriage Plot, a novel that follows Brown students from their 1982 Commencement through their following year in the harsh real world. Although the ensuing literary hoopla has subsided, I still haven’t forgotten the relatively extreme existential crisis the book triggered in me.

I’d picked up a copy at the Brown Bookstore and settled into a Blue Room sofa. As I flipped through the pages, moving through the Commencement-day flashbacks, it slowly began to dawn on me that I was messing with the fabric of time and space. I WAS A CHARACTER IN THE MARRIAGE PLOT EVEN AS I PERUSED IT. How did Jeffrey Eugenides know my life?

“Ok, calm down,” I reminded myself. “First of all, it’s set in the 1980s. Secondly, Eugenides went to Brown, so obviously he’d know the day-to-day existence of an average student.” But I still couldn’t shake the feeling he was writing about me. Consider the evidence:

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