The Providence Phoenix 02/08/13 by The Phoenix

february 8–14, 2013 | rhode island’s largest weekly | free

last ChanCe!

nominate local stars @ thephoenix. com/best

why I lIke vIolent vIdeo games On power fantasies, gender, and first-person shooters _by Maddy Myers | p 6

luv

sex and the City

In Woonsocket, a kinky empire | p 8

wrestling mania

The Wilbury Group’s Chad Deity | p 16

Firstworks presents

Power. Precision. Passion.

Valentine’s Day Offer: * Save 20% on tickets Use code: LOVE20 at box office through Feb. 14 *Valid on $38-68 ticket levels. Prices incl. $3 restoration fee

Fall in love with one of the world’s top dance companies! Three beautiful ballets, three brilliant composers. Celebrate the 100th anniversary of the ballet that caused a riot—Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.

March 19, 7:30pm at

Get tickets at first-works.org or 401-421-ARTS

Photo by Herbert Migdoll

The Joffrey Ballet

providence.thephoenix.com | the providence phoenix | february 8, 2013 3

february 8, 2013

contents on the cover F ILLUSTRATION By SAMUEL DEATS

in thiS iSSue p 15

p 16

p 14

6 first-person shooter _ m addy my ers

The author — black belt, game critic, feminist — explores what violent video games do for the women who love them.

14 homegrown product _by chris con ti

Ready for the big show: torn shorts ripping and rolling Through the Mill.

15 art _ by chri s cont i

Animal instincts: simen johan at Brown and maralie at Yellow Peril.

16 theater _by bi ll rod riguez

Wrestling mania: the Wilbury Groups’s elaborate entrance of chad deity; and the illusion at Providence College Theatre.

24 film

“Short Takes” on side effects and bullet to the head.

in every iSSue 6 phillipe & jorge’s 4 cool, cool world

The Blizzard: the origin of the breadand-milk thing | The poison pill | Dirty business | The Laurel Show

PH ILIP cHE AN E y

6 4 the city _by der f 7 5 this just in 10

online exclusives! F eye-bleach-worthy cineMa!

Just in time for valentine’s Day: a collection of the 55 squickiest sex scenes of the 21st century, from Freddy Got Fingered to Hyde Park On Hudson, from autofellatio to zoophilia. All the disgust and depravity awaits at thePhoenix.com.

Gordon Fox’s broken heart | The Twitter origin story | Bee School at Rhode Island College

10 dining Bonefish Grill is a well-polished link 11 in an accomplished chain. 12 8 days a week Zappa Plays Zappa, American Idiot, the 12 Providence Children’s Film Festival, The Rap Guide to Evolution, and more.

26 moon signs 30 _ by symb o l in e da i 26 jonesin’ _puzzle by matt jones 30 providence

providence | boSton | portLand vol. xxvi | no. 6

Stephen m. mindich publisher + chairMan

everett finkeLStein chief operating officer

peter kadziS

executive editor

officeS providence 150 cheStnut St, providence, ri 02903 401.273.6397 | fax 401.273.0920 boston 126 brookLine ave, boSton, ma 02215, 617-536-5390, advertiSing dept fax 617-536-1463, editoriaL dept fax 617-859-8201 portland 65 weSt commerciaL St, Suite 207, portLand, me 04101, 207.773.8900 | fax 207.773.8905 national sales office 150 cheStnut St, providence, ri 02903, 401.273.6397 x 232 | fax 401.272.8712 website thephoenix.com/providence subscriptions buLk rate $74/6 monthS, $156/1 year, aLLow 7-14 dayS for deLivery. caLL 401.273.6397 copyright © 2013 by the providence phoenix, inc. aLL rightS reServed. reproduction without permiSSion, by any method whatSoever, iS prohibited. printed by maSS web printing co., inc., 314 waShington St, auburn, ma 01501 | 508.832.5317

associate publisher Stephen L. brown Managing editor Lou papineau news editor david Scharfenberg editorial design Manager janet Smith tayLor contributing editors biLL rodriguez, johnette rodriguez contributing writers rudy cheekS, chriS conti, greg cook, chip young contributing photographer richard mccaffrey contributing illustrator daLe StephanoS account executives jennifer aLarie, bruce aLLen, joShua cournoyer, dayna mancini senior vice president a. wiLLiam riSteen integrated Media account coordinator adam oppenheimer circulation jim dorgan [director], michaeL johnSon [manager] the phoenix Media/coMMunications group chairMan Stephen m. mindich chief operating officer everett finkeLStein executive editor peter kadziS senior vice president a. wiLLiam riSteen THE PHOENIX NEWSPAPERS | FNX RADIO NETWORK | g8WAvE MASS WEB PRINTINg | PEOPLE2PEOPLE gROUP

4 february 8, 2013 | the providence phoenix | providence.thephoenix.com

phillipe + Jorge’s cool, cool World

The blizzard the origin of the bread-and-milk thing; same-sex marriage musings Thirty-five years after the

Blizzard of ’78, the memories f are remarkably fresh.

At the time, Jorge’s (Rudy Cheeks) full-time gig was playing with the Young Adults. The band had a two-night booking at Trax, a club in Manhattan, that was to begin on that Monday. Half of the band and crew had already traveled to New York and were holed up on Bond Street at the loft of their friends Jamie and Susan. Jorge, though, was not among this early group. He was planning to take an afternoon train to the city, as the band wasn’t set to take the stage until midnight. By midafternoon, the snow was so heavy that Our Little Towne was virtually shutting down. And it was obvious that members of the band still in Rhode Island weren’t getting to NYC. So at 4 pm, Jorge did what any self-respecting rock ’n’ roller would do in that situation: he rushed out to the closest liquor store and stocked up. After a few days, the snow was waist-high and Vo Dilun was at a standstill. There was the bad — RIPTA buses stranded in the snow drifts like giant elephants, their meters ripped out — and the beautiful: people walking around their neighborhoods, running into neighbors they hadn’t spoken to in years. At one point, Jorge trudged to Leo’s on Chestnut Street where the National Guard had airlifted food. A group of employees and Leo’s regulars were feeding the motorists stranded on Route 95. Jorge, who was handling the Young Adults bookings at the time, was marking off the dates the band was missing: two nights in Connecticut, a concert at a college in New Hampshire, two nights in Boston. This “no money coming in” situation undoubtedly led to Jorge’s desperate decision to join a three-day poker game unfolding upstairs. Fortunately, Brian Kenner didn’t take all the money in his wallet.

More Blizzard

As the blizzard began, Phillipe piled into an old Ford van owned by one of his colleagues at the legendary India Imports. He was hoping to make it to his Wickford home. The owner’s wife and another co-worker, both of whom lived in South County, were on board, too. The whole crew had been let out early in hopes of beating the storm. No such luck. Right after leaving Route 95 South and turning on to Route 4,

the van’s motor suddenly shut down — completely choked by a thick layer of snow and ice. Since the day had started off fairly innocuously, weather-wise, P. only had a fairly light coat. He added a pair of children’s mittens he’d found in the van that barely covered his fingers. Needless to say, it was a bit frightening to be standing on the side of the road in no-man’s land on Route 4, freezing and with the snow blowing blindingly. Fortunately, after about 15 minutes of contemplating a very cold death, the group was able to flag down one of the few drivers on the road. It turned out to be another India Imports employee. He let us hop in, and informed us that he thought the snowfall so beautiful, he’d dropped some acid to further appreciate its splendor. Perhaps too much information. But the car was warm, and we just hoped that our own Ken Kesey could handle the storm. The intrepid driver stayed safely on the back roads until we reached Wickford at the trestle bridge over the harbor, where P. hopped out to join a bunch of people who were busy pulling a friend’s car from a snow bank it had skidded into. Pitching in seemed like the right way to pay back the cosmos for an LSD-laced rescue. By the next day, the sun was out, the local roads were plowed and, thank all gods, the liquor store was open. Phillipe and his roommate spent the morning doing flips off their back porch into

The CiTy _by d er f

an incredibly deep pile of snow and swanning down the middle of Main Street with glasses of cheap Gallo red wine in hand. Two days later, P. had one of the oddest experiences in his time in Little Rhody when he hitched a ride north to Providence to see his then-girlfriend. He wound up walking into the city down the middle of Route 95 when the car couldn’t go any further due to the snow and abandoned vehicles. If you have ever seen The Day After Tomorrow, you get the idea.

The poison pill

Despite the joy surrounding the House’s recent passage of same-sex marriage legislation, questions remain about its fate in the Senate. Proponents are most worried about the wholehearted opposition of Senate President M. Teresa Paiva Weed (thoroughly explored in last week’s Phoenix by news editor David Scharfenberg); Michael McCaffrey, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and professional thug Senator Frank Ciccone, who wants a voter referendum on a constitutional amendment declaring marriage the union of a man and a woman. The biggest fear is that the Judiciary Committee will attach a “poison pill” to the legislation ensuring its defeat, something like: “same-sex marriage will be legal, and we will also allow people to shoot each other’s dogs whenever they feel like it.” That, or any similar addendum, would be an egregious affront to democracy.

dirTy Business

An old soccer saying has anyone who knows little about the game believing “the ball moves because there is a frog inside it.” Well, it was only the frog contingent that was surprised when Europol recently declared that hundreds of professional matches across the continent had been fixed by underworld forces — including an Asian cartel — in recent years. For decades, match-fixing has been a part of the game in Europe. P&J won’t point fingers, but Greece and Italy, among others, will know whom we are talking about. And don’t even think of looking too deeply into African or South American behavior. This is just a case of the apple not falling far from the tree, though, as FIFA — the game’s global governing body — is an atrocious conflagration of selfserving, power-hungry old men who you wouldn’t let hold a dollar for you. And that atrocious conflagration has some serious problems on its hands — not just matchfixing, but incidents of racism, which have largely vanished from American pro sports. (Let’s put it this way: anyone at a recent live, stateside event heard fans making monkey noises or throwing bananas when a black player touches the ball? Thought as much. Not a good idea if you value your teeth.) UEFA, European soccer’s governing body, recently fined

the Serbian Football Association $105,000 after fans racially abused English players in a match of Under-21 teams. Not that England is a role model. The English national team captain was accused of calling another player a “black c—t,” and has lost his captaincy. Sometimes we think there couldn’t be worse sportsmen than Lance Armstrong or worse fans than the drunken morons in the stands in the US. But we’d be wrong.

The laurel show

For the past few Wednesday evenings, the inimitable Laurel Casey has been holding forth at the Mile & a Quarter on South Water Street in Providence. These are totally unique shows. There are talented guest performers singing or demonstrating fashion tips as Laurel provides running commentary and the occasional rant. And there is music, of course, from the chanteuse and her able backing musicians. Kirk Feather stopped by a couple of weeks ago to add his alto saxophone to the mix. We highly recommend this show as long as it lasts. P&J (and probably Laurel herself) have no idea what’s going to happen any given week, but the folks who have come down have laughed and cheered and had themselves a good old time. Check this out. ^

Send rock salt and Pulitzer-grade tips to p&j@phx.com.

providence.thephoenix.com | the providence phoenix | february 8, 2013 5

“There are those days when there’s contentious debates going on, in my mind, I can hear Diana [Ross sing], ‘Where Did Our Love Go?’ ”

This Just In

_Gordon Fox

music dept.

Gordon Fox’s Motown moment

If there are partisan grumblings at the Rhode Island School of Designs’s Fleet Library amid Speaker of the House Gordon Fox’s “History of Motown” lecture, they’re drowned out by the music. Before Fox takes the podium, tunes like the Supremes’ “Baby Love” and “Stop! In the Name of Love” pipe from nearby speakers, while the crowd happily sways, snaps, claps, and shimmies. (Compilation CDs stamped with Fox’s face are sold for $10 outside the library to benefit the event’s organizer, the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society.) As the presentation begins, guests nod and murmur “Mmmhmm” when Fox reminisces about his mother’s Saturday house-cleaning marathons, when she would crank up the stereo and whirl about. They laugh when he says, “Even today, I must admit . . . there are those days — reps, block your ears — when there’s contentious debates going on, in my mind, I can hear Diana [Ross sing], ‘Where Did Our Love Go?’” And many go moist-eyed when the speaker, asked about Motown’s power to cross racial lines, again summons his 1960s childhood in Mount Hope, the son of a white father and a black mother. “I am a literal representation of integration,” he says. He ticks off childhood memories about Freedom Rides and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. “I mean, here I was at that time, I was seven

Phi li P Ei l

‘BUILDING THE BRIDGE’ Fox.

years old — the world was coming to an end,” he says, “but ultimately, there were shards of hope.” The Supremes — a group Fox calls “my girls” — were one of those bright spots. “Here you have three beautiful black women, clad in sequins, wigged up [with] perfected coifs, the moves and whatnot, being allowed into the bedrooms, the living rooms, and entrusted to little white boys and little white girls, decreasing the threat, building the bridge,” Fox says. “And I don’t know for sure, but I think those children that watched those three ladies up there doing their thing and looking fine are somehow better than their parents.” His voice wavers, then he continues. “And that’s a beautiful thing.” But the lecture isn’t all so somber. During the Q&A session following the speaker’s remarks, state Superior Court Judge Edward Clifton raises his hand and, as if quoting a long-established statute, says, “Most of us believe that there is one song that we sing better than the artist.” Which tune, he asks, does the speaker sing better than the pros? There is a pause. From the row in front of Clifton, Congressman David Cicilline calls out, “I’m tweeting your answer, Gordon!” His iPhone is poised and ready. Then, after another moment, the Speaker leans into the microphone and says, “What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?” _Philip Eil

origins

buzz

The TwiTTer map

aT rhode island College: ‘Bee sChool’

Jack Dorsey, the billionaire co-founder of Twitter and, more recently, Square, sits at a long table at the Rhode Island School of Design’s Market House. He’s dressed in black jeans and a black pullover. And he’ll soon head over to the RISD Auditorium to deliver a lecture to faculty and students about technology and design. But first, I have a question for him. He’s already told the reporters gathered here that he didn’t set out to launch a company and make piles of money. He just wanted to see Twitter exist in the world. I want to know what that means. I want to know where it came from. I want to know the origin of the microblogging site that’s powered revolution in the Middle East and NBA trade rumors in America. Here’s what he says, #LightlyEdited:

Dorsey

Well, my parents grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. They never left the city. They didn’t fly to the suburbs. They believed in the city and the urban environment and the diversity that it presents. I grew up in that environment and I loved it. I love cities. And I became obsessed with maps. And when my parents got their first computer, which was a Macintosh in 1984, I was fascinated by it because suddenly you had this potential to put a map — and actually move the map — on screen. So that’s how I got into programming. I didn’t become a programmer because I wanted to become a programmer. I wanted to play with maps.

I’ve always had the attitude that you do whatever it takes to get what you want. And what I wanted to see was a more alive picture of the city — something that is living and breathing. The other thing my parents had was a police scanner and a CB radio, so I could hear ambulances — say, “On 5th and Broadway, patient with cardiac arrest going to St. John’s Mercy.” So, three data points, which I could put into a program, and could actually simulate where an ambulance was going in the city. I learned two years later that there was a whole industry around that called dispatch. So, I said, “I need to find the biggest dispatch firm in the world and I need to work there, so I can learn.” And I found it in New York City and suddenly I was working at the largest dispatch center in the entire city. In 2001, I realized I had all these verticals: I had taxi cabs, couriers, black cars, ambulances, police, fire. I knew where they were, what they were doing, where were the people. So I could see things. It was amazing. I would see flocks of taxis go to the Met and know that there was an event there and emergency vehicles descending upon one area and know something was up. What if individuals could do the same thing? What if they could update where they were, what they were doing, where they were going — but also, you could see that live? Then you actually have the city. Then you potentially have the world, as well.

_David Scharfenberg

Honeybees have sex in mid-air, Betty Mencucci tells her audience in a Rhode Island College lecture hall. The royal lady zooms toward a pack of male drones, she says. “And the minute a queen is there, they’re like, ‘Whoa, guys, there she is!’ ” Mencucci shouts. “They fly after her,” she continues, standing at a table piled with beeswax candles and jars of honey, “and they form, like, a comet of bees after her — this is up in the air like maybe 15 feet or so — and the strongest and the swiftest drone Mencucci will catch her first and he will mate in mid-air. Immediately after a mating, there’s a popping sound heard, and he falls over backwards and he drops to the ground dead.” The crowd chuckles. This happens over and over up to 20 times, Mencucci says: the chase, the hookup, the drone’s post-coital death drop. Then it’s time for the queen to head back to the hive to lay thousands of eggs. It’s day one of the Rhode Island Beekeepers Association’s 2013 “Bee School” and the birds and bees, for bees, are just a small part of the lesson. Mencucci — the owner of Betty’s Bee Farm in Burrillville and “RI’s Pioneering Woman Beekeeper,” according to RIBA — has a lot of material to cover. She hands out pages of bee facts (“Flight Speed . . . 15 MPH maximum”), bee terms (“Royal jelly – a milky white substance secreted from glands of the nurse bees”), and recommendations for equipment (“smoker . . . bee brush . . . full suit with veil”). She passes around blocks of pure beeswax for guests to smell. She lists the myriad reasons for

inviting a swarm of stinging insects into your backyard: achieving harmony with nature; upping the pollination rate of your garden; practicing “apitherapy,” by stinging oneself with bees to relieve the pain of arthritis. Today’s lesson seems to have crossdemographic appeal. Seated in the audience are older women with canes; a young, burly, bouncer-looking guy with a dragon tattoo swirling around his right forearm; and a fortysomething man diligently scribbling notes with a pistol holstered to his belt and a “Bureau of Criminal Investigation” polo shirt on his back. Present for the lecture, too, is RIC’s sustainability coordinator, Jim Murphy, who explains after the lecture that the college acquired two hives of its own last summer shortly after his job was created. They’re named “Latifah” and “Bee-atrice,” for their respective queens. Tending to those hives has helped ease Murphy’s anxiety about getting stung. “When I first started taking care of them . . . I was in there with the suit, the gloves, the hat . . . the smoker,” he says. Since then, his fears have eased considerably. Today he’s wearing only slacks, a button down shirt, and a light winter coat. That’s fine, he says: “If I were to go up there right now, I would just open it up and take a peek in.” Registration for the current Bee School session is closed, but anyone interested in beekeeping is invited to join RIBA or go to ribeekeper.org. To enjoy the wonders of beekeeping from a safe distance, follow RIC alumni Scott and Emily Langlais’s adventures at provbees.tumblr.com.

_Philip Eil

6 february 8, 2013 | the providence phoenix | providence.thephoenix.com

first-person shooter why I play vIolent vIdeo games _By maddy myers When I was 15, I made a new best

friend. The first time I went to his f house after school, I slid a kitchen chair

over to his computer desk so we could wade through Internet videos together. In passing, he mentioned that he played Counter-Strike. What was that? It took only a moment for him to boot it up and log in to the game’s most famous map, “de_dust.” It’s just Capture the Flag, he explained, except with a bomb instead of a flag, and everyone has a gun. The game’s two teams — the Terrorists and the CounterTerrorists — battle over and over with one another in a small, maze-like area. The Terrorists try to set off a bomb, and the CounterTerrorists try to prevent this. Within minutes, my new friend had killed dozens of other players with steady, practiced headshots. He knew what gun to pick from the load-out, where to hide when the match began, when to crouch, when to strafe, when to jump. He knew how to win. I had three thoughts: 1. This looks hard. 2. Girls don’t play this, do they? 3. I really want to play this. I said all of this out loud as my friend blew the heads off stranger after stranger. His answers were: 1. Yup. 2. There are a few girls who play this, but not many. . . 3. . . . So, if you play it, you’ll be special.

piece felt different; she does understand and appreciate games as art — her criticism is informed. So, why do I like them? When I saw Counter-Strike for the first time, why did I fall in love? In thinking about this, I’ve realized that my longing to feel powerful began years before I lined up my first virtual headshot. All through elementary school, I begged my parents for karate lessons; they didn’t cave until I was 11. I was the smallest kid in my class, and I was determined to get bigger — or at least, feel bigger. Before the lessons, I copied Trini’s karate moves from Power Rangers. I had the Trini action figure, along with more She-Ra and He-Man action figures than you could count, and I spent nearly all of my elementary-school recess time pretending to

fight imaginary enemies with my then-best friend. We believed that there were monsters, invisible monsters, that only we could find, and that we found them by sense of smell (don’t ask; I don’t even know). Every single day, we saved the world. One day, he and I tried to play a Warcraftbranded board game. He asked me which of the little plastic figurines I wanted to use. He had another male friend over, and the two of them were all set up with their archerrogues or orcs or what have you. “Are there any girl characters in this game?” I asked. We dug around in the box for a while. Eventually, he found a barbarian woman; she was tiny in comparison to her male counterpart. A miniature brown plastic lady

with an off-the-shoulder fur dress and a big pile of messy hair. “You can be a barbarian,” he told me. “Your name can be Barbara!” I didn’t want to be Barbara. She looked too small to me, and she didn’t even have a weapon. I told him I was inventing my own character, someone way stronger. That day kicked off the longest, most complex role-playing game we had ever created — a game in which we all invented Warcraft-inspired characters and got into very real schoolyard brawls with one another, and with school bullies, who beat us up for claiming to be orcs and magical animals. We came home with bruises and battle scars and filled our diaries with the stories. I still see that guy from time to time, and we talk about our old elementary-school

IllustratIon By samuel deats

’ve thought back on this memory a lot in the past few months, as I see publications across the Internet posting article after article about a possible link between virtual video-game violence and real-life aggression. Somer Sherwood wrote “In the Wake of Newtown, Violent Movies and Video Games Just Seem Wrong” for xoJane on December 21, speculating that “dudes who play those Black Ops games are missing an empathy chip in their brains.” That quote haunted me for the next month, and I flashed back to it as I read Jason Shreier’s in-depth January 17 piece for Kotaku, which catalogues 25 years of research about whether playing violent video games correlates with real-life aggression (results vary, it turns out). That same day, video-game creator and critic Mattie Brice published a piece at Nightmare Mode called “Would You Kindly.” In it, she wrote that the real threat of violence she faces daily as a transwoman of color makes her experience of the fantastical violence in mainstream games, especially mainstream shooters, anything but relatable or fun. Some violent games of this past year — Hotline Miami, Spec Ops, and Far Cry 3 — include sections intended to make the player feel guilty for their violent acts in-game. But as Brice’s piece makes clear, one can only see these games as social commentary if one finds ingame violence to be fun in the first place. I’m used to seeing my favorite games get trotted out as bad examples in articles about video-game violence. From Doom to Mortal Kombat to Black Ops, I’ve played — and enjoyed — them all. I can try to write off Sherwood’s xoJane piece as misplaced fear from a person who doesn’t “get” video games as a legitimate form of art. But reading Brice’s

game. But he doesn’t call it a game; he calls it The War. He doesn’t remember everyone’s real name, anymore, either. But we remember our aliases: Dragon. Death Knight. Gul’dan the Orc. Phantom. Mary Gold (that was me). I have always been violent. No: I have always played at violence.

played traditionally feminine games, too. I had as many Barbies and Tenko princesses and My Little Ponies as I had She-Ra dolls, and I invented romantic tales just as often as violent wars. I loved to create stories, and when I played dress-up, I remember pretending to be a princess as easily as I pretended to be a warrior or huntress. I played with “girl stuff” along with “boy stuff,” and I played with both girls and boys, too, in spite of schoolyard claims of “cooties.” Throughout, I was dimly aware of the differences between my toys and styles of play, not least of which because my Game Boy said “boy” on it. I also knew that I didn’t see myself the same way that other people saw me: the cute little Maddy of the real world didn’t match up with the person I hoped to become. I wanted to get taller, to get bigger, and it just never happened. The day I got my period, I sobbed and sobbed, because it meant I’d never be as tall as I had hoped. In middle school, my mother had taken me to see a special doctor about my height, since I wouldn’t stop obsessing about it. That doctor had X-rayed my hand and told me I’d be “lucky” to reach 5-foot-2 (I still haven’t), and that after I got my period, I would only grow two more inches, tops. He was right. I only ended up getting another inch and a half, after that day of tears. Given my lifelong history of playing at war, and my desperate wish to feel strong, big, and powerful, it made sense that I would gravitate toward Counter-Strike and its ilk around the age of 15. But Counter-Strike, with its all-male selection of avatars and predominantly male player base, allowed no room for princesses — and the guys I played with didn’t, either. I developed some traits during that time that I regret now — the belief that I was “special,” and that I was “better” than other women I knew because I liked playing violent games and they didn’t. The guys I played with encouraged and reinforced this behavior, assuring me that I was “different from those other girls,” that my liking violence made me “cool.” Girl stuff is stupid, I told myself, as I bought pants from the men’s section, told sexist jokes, and mocked all the “girl stuff” that I’d liked, not so many years prior. Soon, “girl stuff is stupid” turned into “girls are stupid,” and that road led me to being a teenage sexist, to being an honorary guy in my gaming clique, to mocking Women’s Studies students to their faces in college. But eventually, I began to wonder why there were so few women in these games — as characters, or as players. Being “special” had started to feel very lonely, and even though I was “one of the guys” in theory, I often still felt like my new friends were talking down to me. There were more than a couple gaming get-togethers that they “forgot” to invite me to. This led me to ask more and more questions, like, why did I have to tone down my femininity in order to be taken seriously by my guy gamer friends? And why, even after I had tried to change to fit in with them, did I still get excluded? Why did these gender categories exist at all? Why did I have to pick one or the other? Couldn’t I wear a tulle petticoat and play violent video games at the same time? As an adult, I realized: yes, of course I could. I only wish I had figured it out sooner. I could have saved myself the emotional anguish of fretting that my interests didn’t fit neatly into one gendered box or the other, and instead realized that the real solution to

my problem was to find some new friends. I also began to wonder even more about those gender demarcations — the ones that I’d rather ignore, but that seem to follow me everywhere, in the media I consume and in the questions that people ask me. The idea that talking about feelings and enjoying dress-up and role-playing are “feminine,” that violence and karate and having strong sexual urges are “masculine.” I don’t like this narrative. I don’t want to enforce it. So, this question still troubles me: why do I enjoy Counter-Strike, Call of Duty, Gears of War, Power Rangers, and even Fight Club? All of these games and movies and TV shows indoctrinate us all with the idea of what “masculine” means, by showing men (and a token “special” woman or two) on the battlefield. Shouldn’t I hate these reinforcements of those gender demarcations, as a liberal/ progressive feminist/gender egalitarian/ bleeding heart/whatever? Shouldn’t I hate violence anyway, even just depictions of violence, since — gender-role indoctrination aside — violent media keeps enforcing the narrative that hurting other people is okay, and maybe even cool and fun? I know that many of my female friends can’t find anything to relate to in these games, that I am still a little “weird,” a little “special” for enjoying violent video games and power fantasies. Especially since most of my friends are also progressives, feminists, gender egalitarians, people fighting the good fight against the sort of crap that I’m not “supposed” to keep on liking if I want to roll with them: the fetishization of gun violence, of masculine-oriented violent behaviors, of violence apologists. And yet, here I am, engaging in a power fantasy and loving it. Is there something wrong with me? There does seem to be something wrong — but the problem does not lie in my taste in games, so much as in my real life. I seem to have been given the short end of the stick, in the real world. So I’m making up for it elsewhere. I like playing Call of Duty because I can do in the game what I can’t do in the real world. I liked playing as Brick in Borderlands even better, or as a female barbarian in Diablo 3, or as the Heavy in Team Fortress 2. I like using shotguns and rocket launchers and axes and maces, and I like heaving a huge, muscled arm into someone’s face. It doesn’t just make me feel powerful — it makes me feel relieved. One word resonates through my every fiber when I play these games: finally. That response stems from being a tiny woman and not being taken seriously. My physical appearance tends to make people think “adorable!” rather than what I’d prefer: “towering, Wonder Womanish bad-ass who can crush you with her pinky.” I started lifting weights in high school, but I have a lot of trouble building muscle. And although I lift more weight now than I did back then, I’ve never “looked” like I could pick up much of anything, and I still can’t lift as much as I’d like. I’m also still short. This is all

p hotos co urt esy of ma dd y myer s

providence.thephoenix.com | the providence phoenix | february 8, 2013 7

The author at age 11, at age 19, and at age 25 (cosplaying as Brick from Borderlands). genetic, of course, along with the blue eyes and blonde hair, which add up to be an ideal appearance for, well, someone else with a different personality than mine. I’ve cultivated a standoffish personality, so that once people get to know me, they know not to fuck with me. Most people also know that I continued taking karate until I got my second-degree black belt at age 20, and that I’ve taken boxing, that I still work out and lift weights almost every day. But none of that shows. I’m still barely over

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of thought that continue across inserts/parentheses. But I wonder if it isn’t simply that the listener has to take in the poem at the right speed, in my case more slowly than we tend to read on the page.” Waldrop will share her work at Brown University’s McCormack Family Theater, 70 Brown St, Providence, at 2:30 pm | Free | 401.863.3260 | brown.edu/cw

thursDAY 7 the Art of love

Valentine’s Day is one week away, and Craftland, 235 Westminster St, Providence, is getting into the mood with “love Nest,” a group exhibition of prints, paintings, sculpture, and drawings featuring woo-themed works by Corey Grayhorse, CW Roelle, Neal Walsh, Will Schaff, and a dozen other local luminaries. At today’s opening reception you can make Valentines while enjoying some food and drink. It runs from 5 to 8 pm, the show is up through March 2 | 401.272.4285 | craftlandshop. com

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Looney Tunes II Best selection of CD’s, vinyl and cassettes

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When Green Day’s AmericAn idiot was making the leap

from rock opera to musical theater, bandleader/ writer/singer/guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong said, “It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but that’s what I love about it. When people see it, it’s going to be my wildest dream.” The tale of rebellious youth, featuring Jesus of Suburbia, St. Jimmy, and Whatsername is “not the most linear story in the world,” Armstrong noted, but the songs, including “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” “Jesus of Suburbia,” and “Last Night On Earth,” are the main attraction. American Idiot is at the Providence Performing Arts Center, 220 Weybosset St, tonight at 7:30 pm, on Saturday at 2 and 8, and on Sunday at 1 | $43-$65 | 401.421.ARTS | ppacri.org

sAturDAY 9 DeAr olD DAD

It’s really all we ever wanted him to do, right? Dweezil zAppA’s last name is more important than his first name, so it’s smart that he’s made a career out of delving into dad’s canon. Dad is Frank Zappa, natch, the iconoclastic rocker with a classical composer’s design gifts and a jazz improviser’s imagination. He also boasted a deep silly streak, and sometimes it overshadowed his more serious musical accomplishments. Dweezil has said that he doesn’t want Pop to be

Fri-Sun | american idiot @ PPAC recalled as a mere “Weird Al” Yankovic character — humor was only part of the picture. Toward that end, the Dweez chooses to update deep cuts like The Grand Wazoo’s “Blessed Relief.” There’s a whole world waiting for you at Lupo’s, 79 Washington Street, Providence, at 7:30 pm | $60-$35 | 401.331.5876 | lupos.com

suNDAY 10 wow-fi

Back in the ’90s, it certainly seemed unlikely that the disarming, nasally-inflected voice of Neutral Milk Hotel’s Jeff MANguM would be one of the generation’s most recognizable. Fifteen years later, however, and the reclusive songwriter has achieved iconic status. His masterwork, 1998’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, is a tremendous document to be sure. And while he probably benefited from the endless mythologizing of an anxious young Internet, his revived status as a performer is a thing to celebrate. Purportedly embarking on a final tour, he plays Lupo’s, 79 Washington St, Providence, with the Music Tapes and Tall Firs at 7 pm | $29.50 + $35 | 401.331.5876 | lupos.com

MoNDAY 11 Mc DArwiN

Baba Brinkman first made waves in 2004 with The Rap Canterbury Tales, giving Chaucer’s work a contemporary spin. Five years later he hatched the rAp Guide to evolution, which cleverly explores beats, rhymes, and the science of life — kinda like Darwin meets Dr. Dre. A sample: “No I wasn’t born in Ghana but Africa is my mama/’Cause that’s where my mama got her mitochondria.” Brinkman will make you laugh and learn at Sapinsley Hall in the Nazarian Center at Rhode Island College, 600 Mount Pleasant Ave, Providence, at 7:30 pm | $35, $30 seniors, $15 students + under 13 | 401.456.8144 | ric.edu/pfa

tuesDAY 12 listeN up

“People often tell me they understand the poems better when I read them,” rosMArie wAlDrop told us a few years ago. “I suppose a reading adds interpretation. The voice makes things like tonal shifts more immediately obvious, or lines

Run a fine-tooth comb over the choppy non sequiturs and disjointed wordplay from indierhyme veteran Aesop rock and you’ll decode plenty of introspective wit behind the woofermauling drums and unkempt beard. We should be treated to plenty of cuts from his latest platter, Skelethon, bolstered by certified bangers “Zero Dark Thirty,” “1000 O’Clock,” and “Racing Stripes.” Rob Sonic, DJ Big Wiz, and Busdriver accompany Aesop, with very special guest B. Dolan! Expect a packed house at the Met, 1005 Main St, Pawtucket | Doors open at 8 pm | $18 advance, $20 day of show | 401.729.1005 | themetri.com

thursDAY 14 kiDs’ ciNeMA

The fourth ANNuAl proviDeNce chilDreN’s filM festivAl will cover the entire

spectrum of the wonder of youth. Fifteen features and 40 or so shorts will dazzle (the documentary People In Motion), provoke thought (Le Tableau takes on “questions of social stratification, class injustice, racism, and existential uncertainty”), and move you (in Kauwboy, “Jojo, a lively 10-year-old with a difficult home life marked by a volatile father and an absent mother, finds solace in an abandoned baby jackdaw”). And there will be plenty of sheer delight in the animated works (including the Best of the New York International Children’s Film Festival 2012) and the engaging “Your Shorts Are Showin’ ” collection. Screenings are at the Cable Car Cinema (204 South Main St), the Metcalf Auditorium at the RISD Museum (20 North Main St), and the RISD Auditorium (17 Canal Walkway), through the 19th | Most screenings $7.50 adults, $5 kids, some are free! | Details @ pcffri.org

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14 February 8, 2013 | the providence phoenix | providence.thephoenix.com

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many noteworthy cuts from the new debut album Through the Mill, and he couldn’t be further from the truth. Torn Shorts is onto something special with a melodic blend of blue-eyed soul, whiskey-soaked roots and blues, and catchy hooks. Through the Mill marks the official full-band debut from Torn Shorts, founded by East Bay native Grabert, who briefly worked the one-manband circuit following a nice run with his previous outfit, Gamblin’ Hands (which landed a few noms in our Best SUPER-TIGHT grabert (right) and his mates. Music Poll a few years back). Grabert’s first entry as Torn Shorts was a demo around the region. “I’m looking forward to showcasing of sorts titled Life On a River, which was featured on RI’s these new songs at the release party, as they are really NPR outlet (listen at ripr.org) last year. The aforementaking on a life of their own. tioned “Brow St.” (named for Grabert’s former residence Last year the band quickly surpassed its Through the Mill in Barrington), which appeared on the Gamblin’ Hands’ Kickstarter campaign goal and then some, which always 2010 EP Far Away Cars, is revamped into a breezy, radioleaves me curious as to an artist’s outlook on fund-raising ready beauty and serves as an excellent album opener, via fans and friends (some decry the DIY integrity of it, with Grabert’s vocals leading the way with the lines, etc.). “We never asked for crazy amounts of money, just “Drink that scotch she said, before the bad news/That’s enough to get the music out there,” Grabert told me. “We why I keep cryin’ the nice guy blues.” “Life On a River” are still a very ‘DIY’ band. also reappears, but the full-band treatment (particularly “The Kickstarter campaign was great for us,” Grabert the fuzzy guitars) elevates the track and provides a nice continued. “There was much more support out there platform for the band to jam-the-fuck-out. from people than I had realized, and we are very grate“There are some improv, jam session moments on the ful.” The band recorded at their HQ over the summer record with guitar solos and things like that, but we also with friend Steve McLaughlin, who engineered the entire rehearsed the shit out of them to really lock down the album. arrangements,” Grabert said. “I may come in with some It’s safe to say lead vocalist Grabert and his mates will lyrics and chord progressions, but everyone gets their vibe land a Best Music Poll ’13 nomination or three, so the TS on it and that’s what makes our sound.” fanbase (dubbed “Shorties”) should get those votes ready While Grabert is a skilled multi-instrumentalist when the ballot goes live in April. (having performed while simultaneously working a Purchase Through the Mill on disc ($15), download ($9.99) harmonica, guitar, and kick drum), he clearly enjoys at cdbaby.com right now, or grab a copy at the CD release jamming with his crew. His equally talented bandmates show at Dusk next weekend. The excellent bill also feaplayed musical chairs, with previous bassist Nick Molak turing Morris & the East Coast and local badass blues crew returning to guitar and former drummer Zach Zarcone Route .44. now on bass. Grabert and drummer Brendan Thompkins “Dusk is such a great live venue, and [co-owner] Rick collaborated on some of the lyrics. The crew enriched this Sunderland has supported Torn Shorts from the beginupdated version and brims with melodic energy. ning,” commended Grabert. “I never wanted it to be the ‘Josh Grabert Band,’ ” he “This bill is stacked and should make for a great night said when we caught up earlier this week. Having known of live music.” ^ the ever-humble Grabert for a few years now, it’s great to him so confident and enthused about the lineup and new album. TORN SHORTS T+ ROUTE .44 + MORRIS & THE EAST COAST | “The live show is getting super-tight, and everyone is Friday, February 15 @ 9 pm | Dusk, 301 Harris Ave, Providence killing it,” Grabert said following a recent string of shows | 401.714.0444 | tornshortsmusic.com

Mardi Gras in O’ville! pLuS, LoLita bLacK returnS to aS220

Sorry to report the detroit rebellion show at chilango’s

slated for thurSday (the 7th) has been rescheduled for f march 14, but fear not, for the roots café (401.272.7422) hosts The Can’T noTs with VerTiCal Twin and pvd newcomers loCal lighTs tonight, while Fall & BounCe, sexCoFFee, and nymphidels visit Firehouse 13 ($5, 401.270.1801). the met (401.729.1005) presents a supremely badass lineup on Friday (the 8th) with The neighBorhoods, hope anChor, and neuTral naTion rocking out in the bucket, while an equally badass trio throws down at Local 121 with parTy pigs, Thee iTChies, and raVi shaVi (new album is pretty darn excellent); 21+ and doors at 10 pm, call 401.274.2121. the ladies take the lead on Saturday (the 9th)

as Jess powers and eriC Bloom have assembled an all-star mardi Gras band, including roz raskin, Cory pesaTuro, miss wensday, Boo CiTy’s Tai awolaJu, and many more for the chanteuse mardi Gras ball. tix are $10 and the party kicks off around 9 pm, dial 401.383.1112 for all the details. or head over to aS220 and get your face melted for $6 courtesy of worse oFF aliVe, daVid Carradine, loliTa BlaCk (fuck yes), and riFle dieT (mn). and head back there Sunday (the 10th) for The down and ouTs’ tour kickoff party with BrunT oF iT and more ($6); call 401.831.9327 for info on both gigs. also on Sunday, make tracks to Kc’s tap in pawtucket for a stacked lineup featuring sweeT loVe (pick up the debut Motor aSap), she rides, CanniBal ramBlers, and The midnighT ghosT Train; 21+ and $7 at the door, call 401.722.0150. and whether attached or forever rolling solo, get to the parlour next thurSday (the 14th) and join Boo CiTy and The silks for a “Sexxxy time” valentine’s day party; call 401.383.5858 for the steamy details.

off the couch

providence.thephoenix.com | the providence phoenix | February 8, 2013 15

“beSt PLace to PLay PooL iN ri”

“as voted in the 2012 the Providence Phoenix readers Poll”

IN THE WILD a detail of “Untitled #136.”

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AnimAl instincts Simen Johan at Brown and maralie at Yellow Peril _BY GreG Co o K Weird stuff is happening in Si-

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men Johan’s photos in the exhibit f “Until the Kingdom Comes” at Brown

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University’s Bell Gallery (64 College St, Providence, through Feb. 17). It’s a world of mysterious signs and portents. A pair of foxes with bloody snouts sit up, huddled together, squinting against the cold snow. Green parakeets perch in and around the racks of bloody moose dueling under a stormy sky. Muddy, snarling wild dogs roam the puddles and seaweed of a marsh at low tide. Snakes fill dead trees in a rocky canyon. Two snowy owls sit smiling atop a picnic table at some misty forest preserve. A sad-eyed white deer steps through the trees of a snowy hillside. White fur against the snow, it nearly disappears, totally camouflaged. Johan’s critters often seem exhausted or angry or perhaps disoriented from wandering into the wrong place at the wrong time. Some take on human EPIC ACTION moose face off in “Untitled #133.” characteristics, like a lemur that sits upright, lounging in a tree lazily sniffing at a white flower. Johan’s images feel like scenes out Lamb” and lions lying down with lambs and Jesus as the of fairy tales or apocalyptic Hollywood action epics. And sacrificial “Lamb of God.” they’re that kind of fun — dark and moody, sort of gimIn another image, a massive dark bison with a muddy micky, entertaining illusions. beard lies in the dirt of some sort of dump; its eye watches us Johan’s earlier photos felt more like The Twilight Zone or from the shadows. It looks like it could be drooling, collapsed. David Lynch by way of the staged fine art narrative photos This tired bison — an animal long a symbol of the American of Gregory Crewdson and the ecological fables painted by Great Plains as well as a creature revered by Native Americans Walton Ford. Kids played with big bugs or piles of ciga— hovers between interpretations. It’s both a massive defeatrettes. Snow poured out a living room chimney. A boy ed beast and (perhaps) a symbol of a weary nation. stood on a train, smiling as if in need of an exorcist. The animal photos are subtle by comparison. “Vanish” at Yellow Peril Gallery (60 Valley St, ProviThe New York-based photographer, who was born in dence, through February 10) features Providence Norway and raised in Sweden, achieves his realistic look artist Maralie (as in Armstrong, who also performs with with a mix of reality and the band Humanbeast). Here digital trickery. The lamb are awkwardly drawn porwas a live animal, held traits of a mask. And photos in position by a farmer, of a guy holding his dick and who Johan Photoshopped testicles with snippets of Walt out of the picture, Bell Whitman poetry printed on Gallery director Jo-Ann top. And black ropes knotted Conklin explains. The like braided hair, but with foxes were road kill. The an undercurrent of bondage. fighting moose were And a loop of 14 videos that taxidermied animals he is a mix of digital glitch art, found in a museum. A experimental montage, retro photo of an elk fallen over computer graphics, and erotic next to a tree and dripping music video. icicles depicts an animal There’s something about he found in a taxidermy sex and technology and control shop and sprayed with that often runs through her water. Often he digitally most provocative work. Earlier inserts the animals into surreal videos (not here) of landscapes he has photoladies wandering around in graphed elsewhere. fur coats were charged with The results of these subterranean memories of special effects at times weird, late night cable erotica. crackle with mythic resoYou can see the potential in nance. A lamb sits like a the rope works and some of the person in a misty green videos, but most of the pieces field and seems to stare feel like formal experiments at us. As a symbol it’s that don’t quite spark. ^ perhaps too on the nose, conjuring associations Read Greg Cook’s blog at AT EASE a lemur in “Untitled #169.” with “Mary Had a Little gregcookland.com/journal.

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theater Wrestling mania

Wilbury’s ElaboratE EntrancE of chad dEity _by bill ro drig ue z them only in animated illustrations, smalltheater budgets being what they are.) The narrator is Macedonio “Mace” Guerra (Jo An Peralta), a six-packed wrestler who makes the slightly flabby Deity come across like an omnipotent god in the ring by letting Deity toss him around like a bean-

br ian g ag non P hotog r aPh y

There’s a terrific surprise awaiting theatergoers willing to venture beyond the usual Trinity and off-Trinity environs, into the outskirts of darkest Olneyville. The Wilbury Group is staging The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, by Kristopher Diaz (through February 9). Directed by Josh Short, it’s one of those sought-out theater experiences in which a decent play is boosted into a great experience by a production that gets everything right and goes on to improve things from there. Casting, performances, staging — bing, bing, bing, bingo! Don’t be put off by this darkly funny tale being set in the world of professional wrestling — what could be more theatrical? So the wins are staged. As one of the characters remarks, you don’t hate ballet because you know the swan is going to die. No, the payoff here isn’t the suspense over the outcome but the mental contortions these people go through. Wilbury has the perfect theater to make this real — it’s a cavernous concrete space in a former mill building, so the actual wrestling ring used for the main stage looks right at home. During intermission the traditional orange ropes and turnbuckles are carefully rigged for Act Two, in which the padded canvas floor is put to wincifying use. The title refers to the flamboyant way that world champion wrestler Deity (Amos Hamrick) enters the arena: grinning like a millionaire and tossing bills in the air like confetti as he slow-walks along in his gold chains and golden trunks. (We are told that he is accompanied by 10 or 20 equally celebratory young women in burqas, but we see

_by bill ro drig ue z Politicians want to talk about politics, fishmongers about fish, and it’s no wonder the playwrights want to talk about theater. The only problem is they sometimes want to talk about it in their works, and the result can be a long-winded philosophical allegory like Tony Kushner’s The Illusion. That description isn’t remedied by the play getting a skillful staging by Providence College Theatre (through February 10), directed by senior Patrick Mark Saunders and John Garrity. You might think that the original playwright should share the blame, since this was adapted from Pierre Corneille’s 17thcentury L’illusion Comique, which examined theatrical genres from pastoral to comedy to tragicomedy. But the original version was, well, comic. This 1988 repurposing,

son, who plays Billy Heartland and flagcaped Old Glory, good guy stooges there to take punishment so wrestling audiences will more vehemently boo whatever bad guy fight manager Everett “EKO” Olsen (Vince Petronio) comes up with. The latest hissable character is called the Fundamentalist, replete in villainblack cloak and turban, with poor Mace standing by as a mustachioed and bandoleroed Mexican bandito. (The manager is such a dunderhead that he thinks anything foreign sounding, whether the Koran or the Kabbalah, can equally stand for “enemy” to audiences.) Here’s where the production becomes better than the play. Playwright Diaz has created a remarkable, larger-thanlife character in Vigneshwar “VP” Padua (Benjamin Gracia), but he has to become smaller-than-life to play the Fundamentalist. Mace comes across this Mumbai-born dude from Brooklyn who is a wonder to behold in his own personality, a supercharged, hyper-articulate street kid who can seduce the chicas in Spanish and trash talk in Hindi or Urdu. Not only does Gracia inhabit the character as effortlessly as Robin Williams channeling an over-caffeinated Eddie Murphy, he tosses in some way-cool hip-hop as well. VP — and Gracia — deserve a play of their own. Unfortunately, the playwright wastes VP as an embarrassed stand-in for racial stereotyping and racist exploitation. Fortunately, Wilbury makes sure we have a grand old time laughing our way through the messages. Here’s a test for you, Trinity subscribers. If the above storyline is something you think you could get into, consider checking out this fine production. You’ll be confirming your credentials as a serious theatergoer. Trinity Rep started out in a church basement, after all. ^

Pridamant ventures to a magician, here changed in gender to Alcandra (Grace Curley), to learn what has happened to the young man (Sean Carney). She has the help of her trusty Amanuensis (Ben Williams), whose tongue has been removed to keep him from revealing her secrets. The sorceress conjures up three scenarios for the father to watch, the son undergoing in each a different set of trials and romantic tribulations — and personality disorders, from meek to arrogant. His love interest in each (Aubrey Dion) is given sympathy and support by her maid and confidante (Marisa Urgo); he is given successive hard times, once nearly run through with a sword by a rival for her affections (George Killian). No names? Actually, the characters galloping through these paces have a different name in each of their three scenes, but let me spare the confusion. In Corneille’s version, the changes in the three parts are ludicrous, and thereby existentially absurd, but that advantage largely evaporates in this incarnation. The Comedy of Errors has been turned into a half-baked Hamlet. We

get a fast talking madman, Matamore, played with delightful enthusiasm and a ludicrous French accent by Kevin Lynch, who somehow manages to keep his tongue knotfree. We never learn the actual name of Pridamant’s son, which is in keeping with the theme of not being certain what is real. Sara Osanna’s simple, stylized scenic design (a leafy sapling is dropped down sideways to indicate an outdoor scene) keeps our attention focused where it should be. The costume design by Mike Floyd keeps scenes light even when the text isn’t doing so — I loved the amusing costume of the lovely love interest, decorated with a trio of gradually larger hearts rising like erotic thought bubbles. And once again kudos to local resource Norman Beauregard for coaching a snappy sword fight scene (no hesitations — yay!). To be fair to the play, despite my critique, The Illusion has been widely presented to appreciative audiences and reviews. See it and decide for yourself. In the world of theater, sometimes the most illusory aspect can be the adamant opinions of critics. ^

MENTAL CONTORTIONS Peralta and gracia.

PC stages tony Kushner’s thE illusion produced a couple of years before the first part of Kushner’s revolutionary Angels In America, attempts to keep its lessons lightly sardonic, but that struggles against its didactic thrust. We observe a stern father, Pridamant (Jeff DeSisto), who regrets having driven away his only son long ago — he wasn’t just miffed by the troublesome, disobedient lad, he literally wanted to kill him. Now closer to death himself, he wants to tell his son that he loves him. Being a cranky, complex codger, he also adds, “I want to make him sick with guilt.” (Under the usual college theater handicap, the father is played by a young man, despite several references to his declining years. It’s disconcerting, but less so than having DeSisto’s hair all talcum-powdered.)

SORCERY AND SWORDS urgo and Carney in the illusion.

bag. Mace takes pride in knowing he’s an excellent wrestler, which makes his having to play the trembling clown more painful than the body slams. He says that when you get really good, you can make “the guy who sucks” look good. But the tricky part is that: “The audience starts to think — guess what? You suck.” In the first act, we see some of those falls and holds projected in video clips on three screens. In the second, we witness some of the real thing; whatever Peralta is getting paid, he deserves a fat raise for getting bounced around. Same for Stuart Wil-

Short,

this is your life (maybe) f

lo g a n b ru n e au

16 February 8, 2013 | the providence phoenix | providence.thephoenix.com

providence.thephoenix.com | the providence phoenix | February 8, 2013 17

noted, most Unless otherwise 9 pm. nd oU ar rt sta shows . es tim irm nf Co Call to

Listings CLUBS THURSDAY 7

THE LOCALS | North Providence | 7 pm | Earl Faria + Kala Farnum

LUXURY BOX SPORTS BAR & GRILL | Seekonk, MA | Chris from What Matters?

MARINER GRILLE | Narragansett | 7 pm | Brian Scott

MEDIATOR STAGE | Providence |

FRIDAY 8

EAST BAY TAVERN | East Providence

BRITISH BEER COMPANY | Bristol |

FETE LOUNGE | Providence | Unregu-

CADY’S TAVERN | Chepachet | 2-6

| DJ Sleazy

LIGHTHOUSE BAR AT TWIN RIVER

NOT YOUR AVERAGE BAR & GRILLE | Warren | After Dark THE NUTTY SCOTSMAN | Chepachet | Stumbling Murphys

OAK HILL TAVERN | North Kingstown | Jim Harvey

OCEAN MIST | Wakefield | Hope Road [Bob Marley tribute]

ONE PELHAM EAST | Newport | Green Line Inbound

133 CLUB | East Providence | Stone Leaf PERKS & CORKS | Westerly | Robin O’Herin

PERRY’S BAR AND GRILLE |

RALPH’S DINER | Worcester, MA |

Veil + Goddard + Onslo + Olde Pine

RHODE ISLAND BILLIARD BAR & BISTRO | North Providence | Greg Hodde’s Blue Reign

RHUMBLINE | Newport | 6:30 pm | Joe Parillo

RI RA | Providence | 10:30 pm | Something Else

THE ROI | Providence | 8:30 pm | Dan Moretti

THE ROOTS | Providence | 9 pm |

SATURDAY 9

D&D Live

LIGHTHOUSE BAR AT TWIN RIVER

LUXURY BOX SPORTS BAR & GRILL | Seekonk, MA | Felix Brown Continued on p 18

18 February 8, 2013 | the providence phoenix | providence.thephoenix.com

THE PARLOUR | Providence | Jay Berndt

Listings Continued from p 17 THE MALTED BARLEY | Westerly | Sol Music

MARINER GRILLE | Narragansett |

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RHODE ISLAND BILLIARD BAR & BISTRO | North Providence | Small Ambition

RHUMBLINE | Newport | 6:30 pm |

SUNDAY 10

LIGHTHOUSE BAR AT TWIN RIVER

MONDAY 11

TUESDAY 12

WEDNESDAY 13

See Club Directory for phone numbers and addresses.

Continued on p 20

Now Showing

MOVIES MUSIC THEATER

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20 February 8, 2013 | the providence phoenix | providence.thephoenix.com

Listings Continued from p 18 BRITISH BEER COMPANY | Bristol | Open mic night with James

DUSK | Providence | Metal Night EAST BAY TAVERN | East Providence | DJ Midnight

FÊTE LOUNGE | Providence | 8:30 pm | The Funky Autocrats

GILLIGAN’S ISLAND | Westerly | Karaoke with DJ Deelish

KNICKERBOCKER CAFE | Westerly |

EAST BAY TAVERN

East Providence’s Hottest Night Spot!

Every Friday:

Flava Fridays Music by “THE ONE” J SLEAZY Hosted by Jahpan / Ft. The ASAP Dancers Wed + Thurs DJ MiDNiGHT

Fri + Sat DJ SLEAZY

Every Fri & Sat: Go Go Dancers! EAST BAY TAVERN 305 LYON AvE EAST PrOviDENcE 401-228-7343 OPEN EvErY DAY FrOM 3PM-1AM

OPIATE PROBLEM? (Heroin, Oxycontin, Percocet, Methadone, Vicodin, etc.)

THURSDAY 14

LUXURY BOX SPORTS BAR & GRILL | Seekonk, MA | Chris from What Matters?

MARINER GRILLE | Narragansett | 7 pm | Ray Kenyon

MEDIATOR STAGE | Providence | 7 pm | Open mic hosted by Don Tassone

THE MET | Pawtucket | Willy Moon NEWPORT GRAND | 8 pm | Name

Rhode Island Hospital is conducting a research study to determine if an injectable opiate-blocking medication called Naltrexone helps opioid dependent persons who are involved with the criminal justice system remain drug-free. Because of Naltrexone’s complete blocking action, it does not cause euphoria or mood alteration and if you stop taking it you do not have to go through withdrawal symptoms.

To be eligible you must: • Be 18 to 60 years old • Have a history of opiate addiction or current dependence. • Have a history of criminal justice involvement ( jail, probation, parole etc.) Participation is voluntary and confidential. You will be compensated for your time and transportation is provided.

If you are interested or have questions please call

(401) 444-6427 This project is being funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and approved by the Miriam Hospital IRB.

FRIDAY 8

COREY RODRIGUES + JOHN ROMANOFF | Fri 8 pm; Sat 8 pm +

10:15 pm | Comedy Connection, East Providence | $15 HARDCORE COMEDY SHOW | 10:30 pm | Comedy Connection, East Providence | $15 TBA | 8 pm | Catch A Rising Star at Twin River, Lincoln | $22

COMIC HYPNOTIST FRANK SANTOS JR. | 10:15 pm | Catch A Rising

Star at Twin River, Lincoln | $22

SATURDAY 9

POPPY CHAMPLIN | 7 pm | Indigo Pizza, 599 Tiogue Ave, Coventry | $20 | 401.615.9600 | indigopizza.com SANDY MARKS | 8 + 10 pm | Catch A Rising Star at Twin River, Lincoln | $22 THE NASTY SHOW WITH ALONZO BODDEN | 10:30 pm | Comix at

Foxwoods, Mashantucket, CT IMPROV JONES | See listing for Thurs ALONZO BODDEN | See listing for Thurs

songs | 7:30 pm | Linden Place, 500 Hope St, Bristol | $20 | 401.253.0390 | lindenplace.org

CANTRIP + EMERALD RAE | 8 pm | Blackstone River Theatre, 549 Broad St, Cumberland | $15 | 401.725.9272 | riverfolk.org

GREG ABATE QUARTET WITH PHIL WOODS | 8 pm | Greenwich Odeum,

59 Main St, East Greenwich | $30 | 401.885.4000 | theodeum.org

JOHN FUZEK, AMY BEDARD, ED McGUIRL, MIKE FISCHMAN, DAN LILLEY, AND MIKE SULLIVAN | 8 pm

| Sandywoods Center For the Arts, 43 Muse Way, Tiverton | $10 advance, $12 door [BYOB + food] | 401.241.7349 | sandywoodsmusic.com

MICHAEL TROY AND MARTIN SWINGER | 8 pm | Rose Garden Coffee-

house at the Congregational Church, 17 West St, Mansfield, MA | $16 | 508.699.8122 | rosegardenfolk.com RAIN ARBO & DAISY MAYHEM | 8 pm | Stone Soup Coffeehouse, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 50 Park Pl, Pawtucket | $16 advance, $18 door | 401.921.5115 | stonesoupcoffeehouse. com RICHARD SHINDELL | 8 pm | Narrows Center For the Arts, 16 Anawan St, Fall River, MA | $30 advance, $35 day of show | 508.324.1926 | narrows center.org “VIVA LAS VEGAS” | An Elvis tribute show with Leo Days | 8 pm | Stadium Theatre, 28 Monument Sq, Woonsocket | $26-$36 | 401.762.4545 | stadiumtheatre.com

SUNDAY 10

DONNA THE BUFFALO | 8 pm | Nar-

rows Center For the Arts, 16 Anawan St, Fall River, MA | $20 advance, $23 day of show | 508.324.1926 | narrows center.org

TUESDAY 12

Fri

CLASSICAL

THE BIT PLAYERS | See listing for

SUNDAY 10

FRIDAY 8

PIANIST BENJAMIN NACAR will

Comix at Foxwoods, Mashantucket, CT | $15-$25 advance BRING YOUR OWN IMPROV | See listing for Fri

perform works by Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, and Chopin | 12:30 pm | Brown University’s Pembroke Hall, 172 Meeting St, Providence | Free | brown.edu/Departments/Humanities_Center/events/calendar.html

WEDNESDAY 13

SATURDAY 9

MIKE KOUTROBIS with Christine

Hurley and more | 8 pm | Comix at Foxwoods, Mashantucket, CT | $10$20 advance

THURSDAY 14

GILBERT GOTTFRIED | 8 + 10 pm |

CONCERTS

THURSDAY 7

FRIDAY 8

WEDNESDAY 13

DEDICATION OF THE RHODE ISLAND PHILHARMONIC’S NEW STEINWAY MODEL D GRAND PIANO with pianist Alon Goldstein

SATURDAY 9

See listing for Fri

POPULAR

Warren Ave, East Providence | $15 | 401.438.8383 | ricomedyconnection. com LOL THURSDAY hosted by Frank O’Donnell | 7:30 pm | Catch A Rising Star at Twin River, 100 Twin River

PIANIST/SINGER MICHAEL DIMUCCI will perform a concert of Italian

COREY RODRIGUES + JOHN ROMANOFF | See listing for Fri MIKE McCARTHY + CHAD MILLER |

COMEDY R-RATED HYPNOTIST FRANK SANTOS | 8 pm | Comedy Connection, 39

| 401.241.7349 | sandywoodsmusic. com SWEETHEARTS’ NIGHT OUT with musical couples playing [mostly] songs of love for Valentine’s Day, featuring Darol Anger & Emy Phelps, Hanneke Cassel & Mike Block, and Lissa Schneckenburger & Corey DiMario | 8 pm | Blackstone River Theatre, 549 Broad St, Cumberland | $15 | 401.725.9272 | riverfolk.org

NEW BEDFORD SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA and the Providence Sing-

ers perform Haydn’s The Creation | 8 pm | Zeiterion Theatre, 684 Purchase St, New Bedford, MA | $20-$55 | 508.994.2900 | zeiterion.org TEMPUS CONTINUUM ENSEMBLE | will present an all-French program, with art songs, instrumental music, and opera scenes from literary classics | 7:30 pm | Goff Memorial Hall, 124 Bay State Rd, Rehoboth, MA | $15, $13 seniors, $6 students + children | 508.252.5718 | carpenter museum.org/Arts.htm

EASTERN CONNECTICUT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA performing

“String Serenade,” with works by Beethoven, Bernstein, and Nielsen | 8 pm | Garde Arts Center, 325 State St, New London, CT | $33-$53 | 860.444.7373 | gardearts.org

DANCE PERFORMANCE SATURDAY 9

FESTIVAL BALLET PRESENTS LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD | Sat

4 pm; Sun 1 + 4 pm | chatterBOXtheatre, 825 Hope St, Providence | Call for ticket info | 401.353.1129 | festivalballet.com

SUNDAY 10

THE STATE BALLET THEATRE OF RUSSIA performs Cinderlla | 2 pm

| The Vets, 1 Avenue of the Arts, Providence | $28-$58 | 401.421.ARTS | vmari.com

FESTIVAL BALLET PRESENTS LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD | See listing for Sat

PARTICIPATORY FRIDAY 8

REHOBOTH CONTRA DANCE with caller Nils Fredland and music by Nor’easter | 8 pm | Goff Memorial Hall, 124 Bay State Rd, Rehoboth, MA | $8 | 508.252.6375 | contradance links.com/rehoboth.html

SATURDAY 9

ENGLISH COUNTRY DANCE with

dance leader Alisa Dodson and music by Dawn Chung and Bill Ouimette | 7:30 pm | South Kingstown Land Trust Barn, 17 Matunuck Beach Rd, Kingston | $10 | 401.539.3009 | kingstonenglish.wordpress.com

EVENTS SATURDAY 9

“AN EVENING WITH THE RAPTORS” | A program with NBS education coordinator and naturalist Rachel Holbert, with an appearance by a red-tailed hawk and a barred owl | 7 pm | Norman Bird Sanctuary, 583 Third Beach Rd, Middletown | $25 | 401.846.2577 | normanbird sanctuary.org

“DO PLANTS FLIRT?” A GUIDED TOUR OF THE ROGER WILLIAMS PARK BOTANICAL CENTER | 11:30

am | Roger Williams Park Botanical Center, 1 Floral Ave, Providence | $3, $1 ages 6-12, free under 6 | 401.785.9450 x250 | providenceri. com/botanical-center

SUNDAY 10

LISA WILLIAMS: MESSAGES FROM BEYOND | Pre-show Psychic Fair at 1

pm, with private readings [$20 for 15 minutes] | 3 pm | Garde Arts Center, 325 State St, New London, CT | $54 + $69 | 860.444.7373 | gardearts.org

YEAR OF THE SNAKE SPRING GALA | A showcase of music, dance,

and stories of Chinese culture, featuring students from Brown University, Harvard University, Princeton University, and Yale University | 7:30 pm | Brown University’s Alumnae Hall, 194 Meeting St, Providence | students.brown.edu/CSAA/ event/13spring.php

SUNDAY 10

THE PROVIDENCE SINGERS and

FILM THURSDAY 7 + 14

“SWINDLERS IN LOVE: A VALENTINE’S FILM SERIES FOR CON MEN

providence.thephoenix.com | the providence phoenix | February 8, 2013 21

AND THEIR MARKS” | Feb 7: The

SATURDAY 9

THE COMPLETE HARRY POTTER FILM SERIES | Feb 9, Harry Potter and

the Philosopher’s Stone [10 am] + Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets [1 pm] | Feb 16, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban [10 am] + Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire [1 pm] | Feb 23, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix [10 am] + Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince [1 pm] | Mar 2, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 [10 am] + Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 [1 pm] | Warwick Public Library, 600 Sandy Ln | Free | 401.739.5440 | warwick library.org

WEDNESDAY 13

FRANK DIFFICULT PRESENTS a night of local experimental shorts | 9 pm | 95 Empire, 95 Empire St, Providence | $3 | 401.831.9327 | as220.org A SCREENING OF SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN | 7:30 pm | The Meet-

ing House, 3852 Main Rd, Tiverton | Free | 401.624.2600 | fourcornersarts. org

THURSDAY 14

4TH ANNUAL PROVIDENCE CHILDREN’S FILM FESTIVAL will pres-

ent 17 features, plus “The Best of the New York International Children’s Film Festival 2012,” “MIT + K12: Engineering Rules,” and “Your Shorts Are Showin’ 2013 Editions” | At Metcalf Auditorium at the RISD Museum, the RISD Auditorium, and Cable Car Cinema through Feb 19 | $7.50, $5 children, students + seniors [$45 for 10-ticket Film Fanatic Family Package; purchase before Feb 13] | Complete film descriptions + more info @ pcffri.org

“CRIME: PULP, ART, AND HOLLYWOOD” | A monthly film series with

A VALENTINE’S DAY SCREENING OF THE DOCUMENTARY LOVE, MARILYN | 6:30 + 8:45 pm | Jane

Pickens Theater, 49 Touro St, Newport | $12 | 401.846.5252 | newport film.com

“SWINDLERS IN LOVE: A VALENTINE’S FILM SERIES FOR CON MEN AND THEIR MARKS” | See listing

for Thurs 7

READINGS THURSDAY 7

PROVIDENCE POETRY SLAM | 8 pm

| AS220, 115 Empire St, Providence | $4 | 401.831.9327 | as220.org

SATURDAY 9

SUNDAY 10

MONDAY 11

BARNET SCHECTER will discuss

and sign his book, George Washington’s America: A Biography Through His Maps | 5:30 pm | John Carter Brown Library, George and Brown sts, Providence | 401.863.2725 | bookstore.brown.edu/ events.html

TUESDAY 12

ROSMARIE WALDROP | 2:30 pm |

Brown University McCormack Family Theater, 70 Brown St, Providence | Free | 401.863.3260 | brown.edu/cw GOT POETRY LIVE! | 6 pm | Blue State Coffee, 300 Thayer St, Providence | $3 | 401.383.8393 | gotpoetry. com/News/topic=23.html

THURSDAY 14

TALKS THURSDAY 7

“THE MANY FACES OF SCHREBER AS THE FACES OF POSTWAR AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYSIS [1960-2000]” | A talk by Orna

Ophir, a clinical psychologist from Israel | 5:30 pm | Brown University’s Pembroke Hall, 172 Meeting St, Providence | Free | brown.edu/ Departments/Humanities_Center/ events/calendar.html

“THE SKY IS THE LIMIT: THE ERRORS AND DANGERS OF SPACE EXPANSIONISM” | A talk by Daniel

Deudney, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University | 5 pm | Brown University’s Watson Institute, 111 Thayer St, Providence | 401.863.2809 | watsoninstitute.org/ events_detail.cfm?id=1947

FRIDAY 8

SATURDAY 9

“NEWPORT AS A MODEL OF URBAN LIVING: NEW LESSONS FROM OLD CITIES” | A talk by John

SUNDAY 10

TUESDAY 12

“RETOOLING EDUCATION IN RHODE ISLAND” | A panel discus-

sion with David Abbott, the RI deputy commissioner of education; Katherine Bergeron, the Brown dean; and John Hazen White Jr., president of Taco, Inc.; moderated by RIPR education reporter Elisabeth Harrison [free, but reservations required @ ripr.org or 401.351.2800] | 5:30 pm | Providence Athenaeum, 251 Benefit St | Free | 401.421.6970 | providenceathenaeum.org

“IS THE RISE OF BRAZIL SUSTAINABLE?” | A talk by Cristovam Bau-

rque, a Brazilian senator and former minister of education and governor of the Federal District of Brazil | 5 pm | Brown University’s Watson Institute, 111 Thayer St, Providence | 401.863.2809 | watsoninstitute.org/ events_detail.cfm?id=1996

WEDNESDAY 13

“THE BETTER ANGELS OF OUR NATURE” | A talk by Steven Pinker,

a professor of psychology at Harvard University and author of the book of the same title | 5 pm | Brown University’s Salomon Center for Teaching, DeCiccio Family Auditorium, the College Green, Providence | Free |

brown.edu/academics/brain-science

“CLIMATE SKEPTICS: THEY’RE HERE; THEY’RE QUEER; GET USED TO THEM” | A talk by filmmaker and

former biologist Randy Olson, including a screening of Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy | 7:30 pm | Brown University’s Granoff Center Martinos Auditorium, 154 Angell St, Providence | Free | brown.edu/Research/ ECI/events/2013_olson.html

“SMUGGLER NATION: HOW ILLICIT TRADE MADE AMERICA” | A panel

discussion with Peter Andreas, author of Smuggler Nation and interim director and professor of political science and international studies at Brown; Catherine Lutz, professor of anthropology and international studies; and James Morone, Mark Blyth, and Richard Snyder, professors of political science | 5 pm | Brown University’s Watson Institute, 111 Thayer St, Providence | 401.863.2809 | watsoninstitute.org/ events_detail.cfm?id=1992 “LANGUAGE OF LOVE” | A talk about the “bizarre and fascinating world of animal courtship and mating rituals” [registration + payment is required in advance] | 6 pm | Norman Bird Sanctuary, 583 Third Beach Rd, Middletown | $7 | 401.846.2577 | normanbirdsanctuary. org

THURSDAY 14

“A VOICE FOR THE STUDENTS: UNDERSTANDING COMMUNITY, EQUITY, AND DIVERSITY” | A talk

“RITUAL AND LEISURE: MONEY, GENDER, AND CHOICE IN MODERN CHINA” | A talk by Robert Weller |

5 pm | Brown University’s Watson Institute, 111 Thayer St, Providence | 401.863.2809 | watsoninstitute.org/ events_detail.cfm?id=2008

ART GALLERIES ALTA LUNA GALLERY |

401.688.0396 | 297 Hope St, Bristol | facebook.com/AltaLunaGallery |

Mon-Sat 10 am-7 pm; Sun 12-5 pm | Through Feb 10: “Mid-Winter Blues,” a juried show and sale

Through Feb 21: “Material Matters: Social Content Through Process and Materials,” with works by Mary Hurwitz, Kat Cope, Christian Kozaki, and Henry Daniel Gatlin AS220 | 401.831.9327 | 115 Empire St, Providence | as220.org | Wed-Fri 1-6 pm; Sat 12-5 pm + by appointment | Feb 2-23: “Practical Tools For Shifting Reality,” new work by Ian Cozzens | “Found Object Paintings,” new works by Lyn Hayden | New photographs by Byron Hocker | New work by Indira Miller AS220 PROJECT SPACE | 401.831.9327 | 93 Mathewson St, Providence | as220. org | Wed-Fri 1-6 pm; Sat 12-5 pm + by appointment | Feb 2-23: “Echoes & Shadows,” new work by Stephen Brownell and Sarah Clover BANKRI GALLERY | 401.456.5015 x 1330 | 1 Turks Head Pl, Providence | bankri.com | Mon-Wed 8:30 am-3 pm; Thurs-Fri 8:30 am-5 pm | Through March 6: “In the Land of Primrose,” illustrations by Alyssa Holland Short — 137 Pitman St, Providence | Mon-Fri 9 am-7 pm; Sat 9 am-3 pm; Sun 12-4 pm | Through March 6: “Animal Fantasy,” paintings by Abbot Low

— 1140 Ten Rod Rd, North Kingstown

| Mon-Fri 9 am-7 pm; Sat 9 am-3 pm; Sun 12-4 pm | Through Apr 3: “Construction Zone,” high-contrast photographs by David DeMelim

BANNISTER GALLERY AT RHODE ISLAND COLLEGE | 401.456.9765 |

600 Mount Pleasant Ave, Providence | www.ric.edu/bannister | Tues-Fri 12-

8 pm | Through Mar 1: “Story/ Line: Narrative Form in Six Graphic Novelists,” works by Gabrielle Bell, Ellen Crenshaw, Emily Flake, Kevin Mutch, Bishakh Som, and Karl Stevens BILL KRUL GALLERY | 401.782.1715 | 142 Boon St, Narragansett | billkrul gallery.com | Daily 10 am-8 pm | Through Feb 28: “Chasing the Light from Sunrise to Sunset,” images by the photographers of the SunriseSunset Workshop CADE TOMPKINS PROJECTS | 401.751.4888 | 198 Hope St, Providence | cadetompkins.com | Sat 10 am-6 pm + by appointment | Through Feb 28: “Double Legacy,” with drawings, prints, sculpture, and painting by artist pairs, including Nancy Friese and Sophiya Khwaja; Daniel Heyman and Stella Ebner; Julia Jacquette and Tedd Nash Pomaski; Dean Snyder and James Foster; and John Udvardy and Huckleberry Starnes CANDITA CLAYTON STUDIO | 401.533.8825 | 999 Main St, Unit 105, Pawtucket | canditaclaytonstudio.com | Wed 6-9 pm + by appointment + chance | Through Mar 6: “Through Time,” works by Kate Blacklock

CHAZAN GALLERY AT WHEELER

| 401.421.9230 | 228 Angell St, Providence | chazangallery.org | Tues-Sat 11 am-4 pm; Sun 2-4 pm | Feb 8-28: “New Impossibilities,” works by Emma Hogarth, Katie Koti, Evan Mann, Agata Michalowska, and Tim Winn and Zehra Khan CRAFTLAND | 401.272.4285 | 235 Westminster St, Providence | craftland shop.com | Through March 2: “Love Nest,” a group exhibition of prints, paintings, sculpture, and drawings created for the second annual Valentine show | with works by Jill Colinan, Jen Corace, Jim Frain, Peter Fuller, Leif Goldberg, Corey Grayhorse, Cassi Jacobs, CW Roelle, Erin Rosenthal, Will Schaff, Deth P. Sun, Daria Tessler, Alec Thibodeau, Hilary Treadwell, Matthew Underwood, and Neal Walsh DAVID WINTON BELL GALLERY | 401 863.2932 | List Art Center, Brown University, 64 College St, Providence |

One of RI’s largest live music venue’s Live Entertainment Every Thursday-Sunday

FRI 2/8 THOSE GUYS SAT 2/9 CRUSHED VELVET DAILY DRINK SPECIALS, GREAT PUB FOOD 6125 Post Road, North Kingstown RI

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brown.edu/Facilities/David_Winton_ Bell_Gallery | Mon-Fri 11 am-4 pm;

Guitar Repair

Sat + Sun 1-4 pm | Through Feb 17: “Until the Kingdom Comes,” photographs by Simen Johan

DORRANCE H. HAMILTON GALLERY AT SALVE REGINA UNIVERSITY | 401.341.2981 | Antone Aca-

demic Center, Lawrence + Leroy aves, Newport | salve.edu/academics/ departments/art/gallery | Tues +

Thurs 11 am-6 pm; Wed + Fri 11 am-5 pm; Sat + Sun 12-4 pm | Feb 14-March 20: “Do What You Must Do,” paintings by Sue McNally GALLERY AT CITY HALL | 401.421.7740 | 25 Dorrance St, Providence | Mon-Fri 8:30 am-4 pm | Through March 15: “Masters of the Craft: Gallery of Memory,” a photography exhibi8t commemorating the 80th anniversary of the founding of Local 1329 of the International Longshoremen’s Association in Providence, the first labor union in New England organized predominantly by Cape Verdeans GALLERY Z | 401.454.8844 | 259 Atwells Ave, Providence | galleryzprov. com | Wed-Sat 12-8 pm + by appointment | Through March 9: “Estate Show: Living and Non-Living Artists Represented and Exhibited with Gallery Z in the Past,” with works by Aghassi, Francesco Agresti, Hagop Aprahamian, Hrair Aprahamian, Virginia Arakelian, Marc Awodey, Lara B., Jillian Barber, Anoush Bargamian, Midge Bovino, Colette Brésilla, Erik Bright, Sue Butler,Yevkine De Gréef, Linda Denosky-Smart, Adrienne Der Marderosian, Areg Eibekian, Robert Elibekian, Vagharshak Elibekian, Samuel Gareginyan, Melik Gazarian, Benjamin Giguere, Fran HenryMeehan, Harutune Hovhanesian, Herbet C. Illium, Nonna Kazanskaya, Ivan Kazanski, Stephen Koharian, Alex Khomski, Janice Lawrence, Marty McCorkle, Stephanie Marzella, Eduard Matevosian, Alan Metnick, Kevork Mourad, Sevan Naccashian,

Continued on p 22

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22 February 8, 2013 | the providence phoenix | providence.thephoenix.com

Research Study

FOR PERSONS INTERESTED IN STARTING SUBOXONE FOR OPIOID DEPENDENCE • Suboxone provided by the study for eligible participants • 11 Confidential Study Visits over 4 Months • Once you enroll in the study you will be compensated for your time

providenceartclub.org | Mon-Fri 12-

Listings Continued from p 21 Reuben Nakian, Valentina Nekrash, Karnig Nalbandian, Mathias Opperdorff, Paul Orzech, Nick Paciorek, Regina A. Partridge, Julian Penrose, Jeff Pullen , Ewa Romaszewicz, Piraji Sagara, Simon Samsonian, Donalyn Schofield, Michael Sherman, Mark Sposato, Helena Stockar, Kegham Tazian, and Ben Weiss

GREEN SPACE GALLERY AT THE T.F. GREEN AIRPORT | 2000 Post

PROJECT TRUST | (401) 793 - 0915 ALCOHOL AND LIVER PROBLEMS? We are seeking volunteers for a study for the treatment of alcohol dependence. A research study of an investigational medication, which may reduce alcohol consumption and improve blood liver tests, is being conducted at Brown University Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies. All study medications are free. You will also be compensated for your time. The study will be conducted by physicians and other trained medical professionals.

For more information call (401) 863 – 6646 All calls will be held in strict confidence.

To qualify you must be:

* 18 years of age or older *Concerned about your drinking and your liver *Serious about reducing or stopping alcohol use

Rd, Warwick | Through April 30: “On

and Through and In Between,” new work by Deborah Baronas and Graham Heffernan HERA GALLERY | 401.789.1488 | 10 High St, Wakefield | heragallery. org | Wed-Fri 1-5 pm; Sat 10 am-4 pm | Through Feb 23: “26th Young Adults’ Exhibition,” with work from students from Chariho High School, Exeter West Greenwich, La Salle Academy, The Lincoln School, Moses Brown School, the New Urban Arts Program, North Kingstown High School, Ocean Tides School, South Kingstown High School, and Westerly High School HOPE GALLERY | 401.396.9117 | 435 Hope St, Bristol | hopegalleryfineart finecraft.com | Thurs-Sat 1-5 pm | Feb 9-March 1: “The Color Red,” a group exhibit with jewelry, textiles, photography, blown glass, oil, pastels, watercolors, sculpture, and more IMAGO GALLERY | 401.245.0173 | 36 Market St, Warren | imagofoundation 4art.org | Thurs 4-8 pm, Fri + Sat 128 pm | Through March 3: “Open Community Exhibit” JAMESTOWN ARTS CENTER | 401.560.0979 | 18 Valley St | jamestownartcenter.org | Wed-Sat 10 am-2 pm | Through Feb 8: “The First Annual Jamestown Arts Center Design Expo,” with works by DWRI Letterpress, Estes Twombly Architects, Ezra Smith Design, Focal Upright Furniture, groundSwell Designs, Hasbro, JAC Youth Design Studio, Jeff Soderbergh, Katherine Field and Associates, Lakuna Design, MAGUIRE Art Design, Mars Made, OCTO PD, Packaging 2.0, S. Barzin Architect, Studio Dunn, taste, Thames & Kosmos, and Ximedica JUDITH KLEIN ART GALLERY | 508.965.7396 | 98 William St, New Bedford, MA | judithkleinart.com | Mon-Tues + Thurs-Fri 12-5 pm; Sat 10:30 am-2:30 pm | Through Feb 23: “Love,” an invitational group exhibit with works on the theme “language of love”

KNIGHT CAMPUS ART GALLERY AT THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE OF RHODE ISLAND | 401.825.2220 |

400 East Ave, Warwick | ccri.edu/art/ galleries/knight | Tues-Wed + Fri

10 am-4 pm; Thurs 10 am-7 pm | Through Feb 22: “Detritus,” works by Kyle Hittmeier KRAUSE GALLERY | 401.831.7350 x 174 | In the Jenks Center at Moses

QUIT-SMOKING STUDY FOR CLEAN & SOBER ALCOHOL/DRUG ABUSERS Have you quit drinking and drugging? Do you now want to quit smoking? A research study is being conducted to compare a stop-smoking medication to nicotine patch treatment. Receive a medical exam, smoking counseling and free medications. The study requires visits or calls weekly for 13 to 14 weeks, then at 3, 6 and 12 months. After you are found to be eligible, earn up to $295 in merchandise certificates for completing the study. If interested call (401) 863-6464 or toll-free 1-877-374-6577 The Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies at Brown University

Brown School, 250 Lloyd Ave, Providence | mosesbrown.org | Mon-Fri

8 am-4 pm + by appointment | Through March 1: “Diverse Views,” works by Holly Gaboriault and Holly & Eli Minaya

PAWTUCKET ARTS COLLABORATIVE GALLERY | 175 Main St | pawtucketartscollaborative.org |

Mon-Sat 10 am to 5 pm | Through Feb 22: “Past Present & Future,” works by Robert W. Easton, Mimo Gordon Riley, Timothy McCarthy, Paul Hitchen, Jules, Eileen McCarney Muldoon, Nancy GaucherThomas, Cindy Horovitz Wilson, John Fazzino, Gretchen Dow Simpson, Mary Ann Rossoni, Ewa Roselli, Paul M. Murray, Charles Morgan, Jean Patiky, Rob Mariani, Karen Rand Anderson, Ian Mohon, Sarah Roche, Marjorie Ball, Reed McLaren, Michele Mennucci, Kristin Street, Marc A. Jaffe, Bonnie Jaffe, Lucy B. Stevens, Mickey Ackerman, Steve Mason, David Kendrick, and Nathan Gurvitch PROVIDENCE ART CLUB | 401.331.1114 | 11 Thomas St |

4 pm; Sat-Sun 2-4 pm | Through Feb 22: “Inside & Out,” with works by Mary Dorsey Brewster and Pamela Neal | “Oil and Water, A Fine Mix,” with works by Sally Ann Martone and Marilyn Saabye

RHODE ISLAND WATERCOLOR SOCIETY GALLERY | 401.726.1876 |

Slater Memorial Park, Armistice Blvd, Pawtucket | riws.org | Tues-Sat 10

SOUTH COUNTY ART ASSOCIATION | 401.783.2195 | 2587 Kingstown

URI FEINSTEN CAMPUS GALLERY

| 401.277.5206 | 80 Washington St, Providence | uri.edu/prov | Mon-Thurs 9 am-9 pm; Fri + Sat 9 am-5 pm | Through Feb 28: “Rhode Island’s African-American Community: From the Colonial Period to the Present,” with fine art, photographs, documents, and artifacts from the Cape Verdean Museum Exhibit, the Haffenreffer Museum, Providence City Archives, the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society, the Rhode Island Historical Society. the Rhode Island College Library Special Collections, Riverzedge, the South County Museum, the URI Library Archive Special Collections, and the private collections of Keith and Theresa Guzman Stokes and Onna Moniz Johns

WICKFORD ART ASSOCIATION GALLERY | 401.294.6840 | 36 Beach

St, North Kingstown | wickfordart.org

| Tues-Sat 11 am-3 pm; Sun 12-3 pm | Through Feb 17: “All Media I,” an open juried show WORLD’S FAIR | 774.991.3206 | At

Machines With Magnets, 400 Main St, Pawtucket | machineswithmagnets. com | Viewings by appointment |

Through Feb 16: “X-TRA ZEUS! New Comics & Drawings,” with works by Joana Avillez, Katrina Silander Clark, Tom Bubul, Brian Chippendale, Cybele Collins, Bryan Dufresne, CF, Alexander West Guerrero, Jeff Leblanc, James Mercer, Zara Messano, Greg Pennisten, Clayton Schiff, Mike Taylor, Quinn Taylor, Thomas Toye, Nathan Tremblay, Willa Van Nostrand, Chloe Wessner, and Mickey Zacchilli YELLOW PERIL GALLERY | 401.861.1535 | 60 Valley St #5, Provi-dence | yellowperilgallery.com | Through Feb 10: “Vanish,” a collection of multi-media photography, video, and installation by Maralie

MUSEUMS NEWPORT ART MUSEUM |

401.848.8200 | 76 Bellevue Ave | newportartmuseum.org | Tues-Sat 11

am-4 pm; Sun 12-4 pm | Admission $10 adults; $8 seniors; $6 students + military with ID; free under 6 | Through May 5: “Legacies In Paint: The Mentor Project,” with work from a four-month mentoring project with mid- to late-career Rhode Island painters [Paula Martiesian, David Barnes, Michele Provost, John Riedel, and Ida Schmulowitz] and younger painters [Buck Hastings, Mollie Hosmer-Dillard, Li Jun Lai, Erika Sabel, and Dan Talbot] | Through May 12: “Faculty Focus,” with works by Charlene Carpenzano and Dan McManus of the NAM art school | Through May 12: “Shelf Life,”paintings by Gerry Perrino | Through May 19: “Newport Annual Members’ Juried Exhibition” RISD MUSEUM | 401.454.6500 | 224 Benefit St, Providence | risdmuseum. org | Tues-Sun 10 am-5 pm [Thurs until 9 pm] | Admission $12; $10 seniors; $5 college students, $3 ages 5-18; free every Sun 10 am–1 pm | Through Feb 24: “Everyday Things: Contemporary Works from the Collection” | Through May 19: “Grisgorious Places: Edward Lear’s Travels” | Through June 9: “RISD Business:

Sassy Signs and Sculptures by Alejandro Diaz” | Through June 30: “Double-and-Add,” works by Angela Bulloch, Anthony McCall, and Haroon Mirza | Through July 14: “The Festive City,” an exhibit of rarely seen prints and books that provide a glimpse into the festivals of early modern Europe

THEATER CONTEMPORARY THEATRE | 327 Main St, Wakefield | Through Feb 9:

ENCORE REPERTORY COMPANY

| 401.762.4545 | stadiumtheatre.com |

At the Stadium Theatre, 28 Monument Sq, Woonsocket | Feb 8 8 pm: The Vagina Monologues, by Eve Ensler | $19 EPIC THEATRE COMPANY | At Hope

Artiste Village, 999 Main St, Pawtucket | Feb 8-23: Six Degrees of Separation,

OCEAN STATE THEATRE COMPANY | 401.921.1777 | oceanstatetheatre. org | 1245 Jefferson Blvd, Warwick |

Through Feb 10: Fools, by Neil Simon | This week: Feb 7 + 9 2 + 7:30 pm; Feb 8 7:30 pm; Feb 10 2 pm | $30-$47

PROVIDENCE COLLEGE THEATRE

PROVIDENCE PERFORMING ARTS CENTER | 401.421.ARTS | ppacri.org

Sapinsley Hall, 600 Mount Pleasant Ave, Providence | Feb 11: The Rap Guide

TRINITY REPERTORY COMPANY

| 401.351.4242 | trinityrep.com | 201 Washington St, Providence | Through Feb 24: Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, adapted by Marilyn Campbell and Curt Columbus | This week: Feb 7-9 7:30 pm; Feb 10 2 + 7:30 pm; Feb 12 7:30 pm | $15-$68 THE WILBURY GROUP |

401.400.7100 | thewilburygroup.org | At the Butcher Block Mill, 25 Eagle St, Providence | Through Feb 9: The

WRITING IS LIVE 2013: A FESTIVAL OF NEW PLAYS IN PROGRSS |

writingislive.com | 201 Washington St, Providence | The fest runs through Mar 2; hit the website for descriptions of the plays | This week: At the Rites & Reason Theatre, 155 Angell St, Providence, He Is Here He Says I Say, by Margaret Namulyanga [Feb 7 @ 8 pm + Feb 9 @ 2 pm + Feb 10 @ 5 pm] | At Leeds Theatre, 77 Waterman St, Providence, Ramses, by Victor Cazares [Feb 8 + 9 @ 8 pm + Feb 10 @ 2 pm] | Free [reservations are suggested]

providence.thephoenix.com | the providence phoenix | February 8, 2013 23

Film

Unless otherwise noted, these listings are for Thurs Feb 7 through Wed Feb 13 [Beautiful Creatures, Escape From Planet Earth, A Good Day To Die Hard, and Safe Haven open on Feb 14]. Times can and do change without notice, so please call the theater before heading out.

SOUND CITY | Thurs: 9 2013 OSCAR SHORTS: ANIMATION | Thurs: 4:30 | Fri: 4:30 | Sat: 12, 4:30 | Sun: 4 | Mon-Thurs: 4:30 2013 OSCAR SHORTS: LIVE ACTION | Thurs: 6:30 | Fri: 6:30, 9 | Sat: 2, 6:30, 9 | Sun: 6, 8:30 | Tues-Thurs: 6:30, 9 2013 OSCAR SHORTS: DOCUMENTARY | Sun: noon LEADING BETWEEN THE VINES | Mon: 7:15 [Q+A with director Terry Theise]

CINEMA WORLD

ISLAND CINEMAS 10

HANSEL & GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS 3D | Thurs: 2:45, 5:45 IDENTITY THIEF | Starts Fri: 11, 1:45, 5, 7:30, 8:15, 9:15, 10:15* [*no show Wed] SIDE EFFECTS | Starts Fri: 10:55, 1:30, 4:45, 7:15, 9:45 BULLET TO THE HEAD | Thurs: 11:15, 1:30, 4:15, 7:15, 9:45 | Fri-Wed: 11:15, 1:20, 4:40, 7:25, 10* [*no show Wed] STAND UP GUYS | 11:10, 1:15, 4:10, 7, 9:30 WARM BODIES | Thurs: 10:45, 1, 3:10, 5:20, 7:30, 9:55 | Fri-Wed: 11:15, 1, 3:10, 5:20, 7:35, 9:55 HANSEL & GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS | Thurs: 11:30, 12:30, 1:45, 4:45, 7, 8:15, 9:05, 10:05 | Fri-Wed: 11:30, 1:45, 4:55, 7:40, 10:05 MOVIE 43 | Thurs: 11:15, 1:30, 5, 7:45, 10 | Fri-Wed: 10:35 am, 10:20 pm PARKER | 11:20, 1:55, 4:50, 9:50* [*no show Wed] BROKEN CITY | Thurs: 10:50, 1:15, 4:30, 7:10 9:50 | Fri-Wed: 1:35, 4:30, 7:10, 9:50 MAMA | 10:35, 2, 5:30, 7:50, 10:10 GANGSTER SQUAD | 1:40, 6:45 A HAUNTED HOUSE | 4:20, 10:20* [*Feb 7 only 9:15] ZERO DARK THIRTY | 10:25, 1:05, 4:25, 7:45, 9:25 THE IMPOSSIBLE | 1:50, 4:35, 7:20 LES MISÉRABLES | 10:40, 12:45, 4, 7:10 PARENTAL GUIDANCE | Thurs: 11:25, 1:35, 7:10 | Fri-Wed: 11:25* [*no show Sun], 1:35, 4:15, 6:55 SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK | 10:50, 1:25, 4:05, 7:05, 9:40 LINCOLN | 10:30, 3:40, 6:50 WRECK-IT RALPH | 10:45, 1:10

AVON CINEMA

260 Thayer St, Providence | 401.421.3315

QUARTET | 2:15, 4:20, 6:30, 8:35

CABLE CAR CINEMA

204 South Main St, Providence | 401.272.3970

622 George Washington Hwy, Lincoln | 401.333.8676

EAST PROVIDENCE 10

60 Newport Ave, East Providence | 401.438.1100

ENTERTAINMENT CINEMAS

30 Village Square Dr, South Kingstown | 401.792.8008

BROKEN CITY | Thurs: 3:40, 9:35 MOVIE 43 | Thurs: 12:20, 3:45, 7:05, 9:50 IDENTITY THIEF | Starts Fri: 12:30, 4:15, 7:20, 9:45

105 Chase Ln, Middletown | 401.847.3456

JANE PICKENS THEATER 49 Touro St, Newport | 401.846.5252

PROVIDENCE PLACE CINEMAS 16

Providence Place | 401.270.4646

SHOWCASE CINEMAS SEEKONK ROUTE 6 Seekonk Square, Seekonk, MA | 508.336.6789

SHOWCASE CINEMAS WARWICK 1200 Quaker Ln | 401.885.1621

SHOWCASE CINEMAS WARWICK MALL 400 Bald Hill Rd | 401.736.5454

A HAUNTED HOUSE | Thurs: 10:10 pm THIS IS 40 | Thurs: 7:10

SHOWCASE CINEMAS NORTH ATTLEBORO

640 South Washington St, North Attleboro, MA | 508.643.3900

The Best in Independent Cinema

OSCAR NOMINATED SHORTS

ANIMATED 2/8 ... 4:30 2/9 ... 12, 4:30 2/10 ... 4 2/11 ... 4:30 2/12 - 2/14 ... 4:30

LIVE ACTION

2/8 ... 6:30, 9 2/9 ... 2, 6:30, 9 2/10 ... 6, 8:30 2/12 - 2/14 ...6:30, 9

DOCUMENTARY 2/10 ... 12

(3 1/2 HR. RUN TIME)

LEADING BETWEEN THE VINES

Campus Fine Wines and the Cable Car Cinema welcome renowned author Terry Theise with a wine tasting and screening of his new documentary. Food by Chez Pascal MONDAY 2/11 @ 7:15 25$ (limited availability)

RI 02903 204 S. MAIN ST. PROVIDENCE CABLECARCINEMA.COM

www.narrowscenter.org

Twenty minutes from Providence 16 Anawan St, Fall River MA (near Battleship Cove) (508) 324-1926 • Doors open @ 7pm, show starts 8pm unless otherwise noted.

Winner Providence Phoenix Best Venue for Folk 2012! Fri. Feb. 8:

RED MOLLY

SWANSEA STADIUM 12

207 Swansea Mall Dr, Swansea, MA | 508.674.6700

OSCAR NOMINATED SHORTS

Sat. Feb. 9:

RIChaRD shINDELL Sat. Feb. 10:

DONNa

ThE BuFFaLO 2/15: LIZ LONGLEY – CD RELEasE, 2/16: TaB BENOIT (sOLD OuT),

2/20: sTEVE KIMOCK BaND WITh BERNIE WORRELL, aNDY hEss aND WaLLY INGRaM 2/21: shaWN MuLLINs 2/22: jaMEs huNTER sIx

24 february 8, 2013 | the providence phoenix | providence.thephoenix.com

movie reviewS in brief

film

FShort Takes new movieS XXW

SIDE EFFECTS

106 minuteS | cinema world + entertainment + iSland + providence place 16 + ShowcaSe + SwanSea Stadium 12 This was the second film I had seen in one day that owed a debt to Hitchcock and featured a presumably psychotic, possibly homicidal female. So maybe I’m overreacting when I see regression in Hollywood’s attitude toward women. That is, they are demonizing them. Let’s start with Hitchcock. As with Psycho, the studio has forbidden anyone from entering a screening of Steven Soderbergh’s Side Effects after the film begins because of its “non-linear nature.” I assume that refers to its extensive, and awkward, use of flashbacks, because the story isn’t so much full of surprises as it is riddled with plot holes. But the proviso does put pressure on critics to reveal as little as possible for fear of spoilers. So,

in brief, Emily (Rooney Mara), whose husband (Channing Tatum) has just returned from a prison term for insider trading, is depressed. A shrink (Jude Law) prescribes a new drug and, well, it apparently has side effects. And then there are the ruthless lesbians and. . . . Maybe I’ve said too much. Side Effects looks classy, keeps your interest, and has attractive actors. Soderbergh says that it is his last movie. Ironically, the filmmaker who started his career with sex, lies and videotape, a film boosting female sexuality and empowerment, now ends it with a so-so thriller that resorts to the same old misogyny.

_Peter Keough

XXW

BULLET TO THE HEAD

92 minuteS | cinema world + entertainment + iSland + providence place 16 + ShowcaSe + SwanSea Stadium 12

SO-SO THRILLER Jude Law and Catherine Zeta-Jones in Side Effects. Veteran director Walter Hill’s return to the screen looks, sounds, and feels like an ’80s action movie beefed-up for modern audiences with heaping helpings of messy blood squibs. Sylvester Stallone plays Jimmy, a New Orleans gun-for-hire whose latest job goes wrong and whose partner winds up dead. He teams up with Taylor (Sung Kang), a straight DC cop working with the corrupt local department. The Rush Hour-style racist remarks directed at the Korean-American Taylor backfire, but much of Bullet is on target, the

dialogue studded with zingers and the chase scenes demonstrating that Hill has not lost his chops. Don’t bother with plot coherence or plausibility — if you’re going to a Stallone film for logic, then you’re in the wrong theater. Jason Momoa transforms his Conan caveman stare into something maniacally scary as the hired gun out to kill Jimmy and Taylor. A credible foray into winter-film barbarism, and it might have been funnier if it left out the Samurai jokes.

_Monica Castillo

FAlso Playing XXXW DJANGO UNCHAINED | 2012 | With Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tar-

antino rewrote the end of World War II, going big as he reduced Hitler to something very small. Now, Tarantino reconfigures that classic American genre, the western, setting his new film in the Deep South, creating what he terms a “Southern,” while infusing it with the spaghetti sensibilities of Sergio Leone (director of Tarantino’s favorite film, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly) and, more so, the genre grit of that other Sergio, Corbucci (director of 1966’s Django, naturally). Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) “purchases” the shackled Django (a whip-scarred Jamie Foxx) with a couple of wellplaced blasts from his concealed handcannon. King, a bounty hunter who is as much a dentist as Doc Holliday, takes on Django as his protégé, with a goal of rescuing Django’s long-lost wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), who’s the property of powerful plantation proprietor Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio, oozing sleaze). Things are slow at points. But it doesn’t make the film feel overlong. Instead, it’s the calm before the shitstorm, when Tarantino takes the chains off, and the real carnage begins. | 165m

XXX GANGSTER SQUAD | 2013 |

In the history of Hollywood violence, Gangster Squad scored a footnote when it was pulled from a September release, after the Aurora shooting for a scene in which gangsters machine-gunned their way through the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre screen. You can’t help wondering if director Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland) cried at that snip. That’s the kind of sick joke that gets him going. This is not to say that Gangster Squad stints on violence: we first meet former Bugsy Siegel lieutenant Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) drawing-and-halving some poor schnook behind the Hollywoodland sign. Sgt. John O’Mara (Josh Brolin) is out to stop this psychopathic racketeer, and LAPD Chief “Whiskey Bill” Parker (Nick Nolte) has suggested he leave his badge at home and form an off-thebooks team, using his WWII guerrilla training to take down Cohen. Gangster Squad is no L.A. Confidential, nor is it much of a history lesson, compressing some 15 years into a few

months. But it’s a diverting look at police work pre-Miranda Rights. And if Fleischer’s gallows humor feels out of place and his aestheticized bloodbaths distasteful, blame your discomfort on the off-screen debate that has rendered Hollywood no longer untouchable. | 113m

IDENTITY THIEF | 2013 | From

IMDB: “Mild-mannered businessman (Jason Bateman) travels from Denver to Miami to confront the deceptively harmless-looking woman (Melissa McCarthy) who has been living it up after stealing Sandy’s identity. | 112m

XXW THE IMPOSSIBLE | 2012 |

In J.A. Bayona’s neo-disaster-film, everything but the carnage is cheap. Appropriating a “true story” about a family torn apart by the 2004 Thailand tsunami — the Spanish clan who inspired it have been Anglicized in the form of Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor — he alternates between intense set pieces and sub-Spielbergian drivel. The tsunami scenes that bookend the picture achieve a visceral splendor; disconcerting sound design and brutal gore effects make them painful to watch. For those few minutes, The Impossible feels like a new type of survivalist movie, one that puts you through the same hell as its characters. But the only thing filling time between those two heartpounding scenes is faux inspirational melodrama, with every emotional moment — lives being saved, families being reunited — backed by an ingratiating musical score and crass camera movements. The hokum can wear you down worse than the tsunami. | 114m

of citizens) and showing how shady means can achieve a noble end, this stolid effort doesn’t draw much vitality from screenwriter Tony Kushner’s florid dialogue. He waxes Shakespearean with his rhetoric, and some scenes, like a row between the President and First Lady (Sally Field), would have played nicely on the Ford Theatre stage in 1865. As a history lesson, it beats the slide shows of Ken Burns. Having the most Oscar-pandering cast of the year helps — like Daniel Day-Lewis in the title role. But except for some domestic stress, this Lincoln doesn’t develop much beyond being a genial blowhard. Even the conflict of resorting to dubious tactics doesn’t ruffle his sanctity. | 159m

segments finds Anna Faris asking Chris Pratt to “poop on me.” Don’t subject yourself to this crap, which is credited to nine writers and 12 directors, among them Farrelly, Steven Brill (the auteur behind Adam Sandler’s Little Nicky), Steve Carr (Paul Blart: Mall Cop) and (sigh) Brett Ratner. The framing segment has Greg Kinnear playing a movie producer hearing pitches from Dennis Quaid, appearing as a gun-wielding screenwriter, who begins with his idea about “a smart career woman played by Kate Winslet” going on a blind date with a man played by Hugh Jackman . . . who has a scrotum hanging from his neck. Did Farrelly hold these A-listers at gunpoint as well? | 90m

XXW MAMA | 2013 | This creepy

any action hero could sustain as much damage as Arnold Schwarzenegger did in The Last Stand, but Jason Statham as the title thief in this adaptation of the Richard Stark (aka Donald E. Westlake) novel Flashfire might have him beat. Here he’s beaten, stabbed, shot, beaten some more, tossed from a speeding car, and stigmatized with a knife. Adding insult to injury, he wears a 10-gallon hat and drawls like Matthew McConaughey. But it’s all worth it for the slick, sadistic, and ingenious payback to come. In a replay of Westlake’s Point Blank, Parker pulls off a heist, but his crew takes his cut and leaves him for dead. He tracks the creeps to Palm Beach and gets help from Leslie (Jennifer Lopez), a down-on-her-luck real-estate agent who mostly gets in the way. Lopez has lost some of her shine since she kicked ass for the FBI in Out of Sight. So has director Taylor Hackford, who was nominated for an Oscar for Ray. As for Statham, I fear he might get beaten up at the box office like Arnold too. | 118m

Terry Theise set in the heart of the German wine regions, exploring the meaning of terroir and examining the spirit of winemaking. | 60m

Guillermo Del Toro-produced horror flick (his hallmarks are all around the smudgy edges) demonstrates convincingly that step-parenting is a real bitch. Especially when a deranged she-demon from beyond the grave has laid all the groundwork. The step-mom is Annabelle (Jessica Chastain, miles away from The Help or Zero Dark Thirty) who couldn’t be less maternal, as she swigs beer straight from the bottle and jams out with her punk rock pals. Alas, motherhood is thrust upon her when her artist boyfriend’s orphaned nieces, long given up for dead, are discovered living alone in the woods like grubby changelings. Annabelle does her best to put up with — and eventually care for — the two girls, but it becomes increasingly obvious that someone . . . or something . . . has gotten there first. First-time director Andrés Muschietti makes the scares in Mama too obvious to be effective, but the quiet in-between times suggest genuine horror, as the hapless Annabelle tries to undo some seriously fucked-up preparenting. | 106m

XX LINCOLN | 2012 | Shot in se-

W MOVIE 43 | 2013 | As this omni-

LEADING BETWEEN THE VINES | 2012 | A documentary by author

pia tints, with detailed period sets and ornate facial hair, the tableaux vivants that constitute Steven Spielberg’s wry hagiography resemble Mathew Brady daguerreotypes, and are about as lively. Focusing on the passage of the 13th Amendment (which gave former slaves the rights

bus film from producer Peter Farrelly (The Three Stooges) begins, your immediate reaction might be “this film looks like shit” (at least, that’s the first thing I scribbled in my notepad, citing the camcorder-grade images captured by four cinematographers) — and that’s before the third of 15

XX PARKER | 2013 | I didn’t think

XX QUARTET | 2012 | At age 75,

actor Dustin Hoffman is a graduate at last to directing a film, and he takes it slow and easy with his initial foray behind the camera. Very veteran British actors nibble on the scenery in this pleasant, harmless adaptation of Ronald Harwood’s 1999 middlebrow play set in a retirement home for ex-opera performers. As one can surmise, each character is delightfully eccentric,

none more so than the self-absorbed one-time diva (reliable Maggie Smith) whose sudden arrival at the home causes havoc. Will she, or won’t she, have a rapprochement with the exhusband (Tom Courtenay) whom she walked out on? Will she, or won¹t she, join the others on stage in a quartet rendition of Verdi? Not to worry: it all unravels splendidly in this teeth-in-aglass comedic drama. | 98m

XW STAND UP GUYS | 2013 | Has Al Pacino ever looked so small? Slouched and sadly more Dunkaccino than Serpico, he plays the career criminal Val in this sentimental hokum directed by Fisher Stevens. Released from prison after 28 years, he’s picked up by best pal Doc (Christopher Walken, pure restraint next to Pacino’s ham), and soon the bad-hair buddies stage a “comeback.” Or, as Val relates to a priest in the inevitable morningafter confession: “I shot a guy in the kneecap, and another one in the arm; I stole a bunch of prescription drugs and a sweet-ass car. And I fucked a Russian hooker . . . four times.” After suffering Viagra-fueled priapism, Val wonders if he’s going to die. “Not tonight,” says his nurse (Julianna Margulies), who — wouldn’t you know it! — is the daughter of old pal and getaway driver Hirsch (Alan Arkin), who’ll be sprung from a nursing home soon enough. Ah, but Doc’s been ordered to execute Val. Not if Pacino kills his career first. | 100m XXW WARM BODIES | 2013 |

The cinema of young-adult-novel adaptations has given us some gonzo plotlines. But can either Twilight or The Hunger Games top Warm Bodies, in which a zombie named R (Nicholas Hoult, who rarely has dialogue, speaking through voiceover for most of the film) eats the brains of dutiful young Perry (Dave Franco) and then creates a hostage situation cum romance with Julie (Teresa Palmer), the girl that Perry left behind? Complete with riffs on Romeo and Juliet and John Malkovich playing the angry dad who needs to lighten up and let his daughter date a zombie? I think not. Sadly, though, the product doesn’t live up to the pitch. Director Jonathan Levine (of The Wackness and 50/50 and who, despite some pleasurable

CinemaScope framing here, seems to be in full sellout mode) panders to the teen set with a fervor that would make Stephenie Meyer blush. Warm Bodies may be about zombies, but it’s more of a Frankenstein’s monster. It steals the “brain-dead culture” subtext from George Romero, the idea of rewriting classic romantic fiction for teen audiences from Clueless, and its best jokes from Shaun of the Dead. It’s more like fan fiction than a coherent script. | 97m

XXXX ZERO DARK THIRTY |

2012 | Zero Dark Thirty begins in terror and ends in despair. The first image is a black screen with the date “September 11, 2001,” and a background sound of panicked, doomed voices on cell phones. The last shot is of one person in tears. In between, director Kathryn Bigelow and screen-writer Mark Boal depict the failures and successes, the shame and triumph of 10 years in the War on Terror. Densely detailed, superbly shot and acted, illuminating and thrilling, it is the best film of 2012. Every epic needs a hero, and here Maya (Jessica Chastain), uneasily fills the role. She enters the film as one of the CIA agents watching the interrogation of Ammar (Reda Kateb), a detainee. At first she shows the revulsion that most would feel watching a person being tortured and humiliated. But once she fills a bucket for the waterboarding, she’s implicated. With more experience, her revulsion gives way to routine. That’s a feeling viewers might not share, though perhaps they, too, are implicated. Shot with the handheld, precisely edited immediacy that Bigelow demonstrated in The Hurt Locker, this procedural is exhausting and exciting. And though we know how it ends, do we know what it means? | 156m

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February 7 31 32 Waning moon in capricorn; moon void-ofcourse 7:44 am until 2:15 pm Friday. excellent for going over your finances or figuring out a more cost-effective way to live, but with that lengthy voc moon, double-check those figures later. but a fine day to take something apart to figure out how it works (yes, relationships count). Logical and practical: Scorpio, Sagittarius, capricorn, aquarius, pisces, taurus, virgo, Leo, and Gemini. touchy: Libra, cancer, aries. 15 16 30

Friday

February 8 31 32 Waning moon in aquarius; moon void-ofcourse in capricorn until 2:15 pm Friday. 17 Feeling depressed this morning? you’re in tune with the moon, and in the afternoon: visionaries unite! bring forward the spacey and fickle folks! Sagittarius, capricorn, aquarius, pisces, aries, virgo, and cancer: you’ll be attracted to those who are unreliable (just sayin’). taurus, Scorpio, and Leo: if you’re being dogmatic, ask yourself if there’s any kind of a bone that would 1 2 lighten you the eff up?

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Valentine’s Day is approaching, just as the moon is waning. For 26 27 28 29 30 31 those with sweethearts, here’s are some gift suggestions: Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius appreciate excitement, sentiment, and frivolity in valentines. Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn expect little, but if you get them something expensive, get the best quality. Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius want verbalized appreciation, but could forget all about the big VD. Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces need reassurance and chocolates.

Jay Berndt and the Orphans / Barn Burning

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_by symboline da i

saTurday

course until 8:51 pm tuesday; mardi Gras (“Fat tuesday”). that lengthy voc moon forces everyone to lighten up — tasks that seem important early in the week will seem less significant by week’s end. today, look at pictures, listen to music, and expect similar vacillating from others. capricorn, aquarius, pisces, aries, taurus, cancer, Scorpio, Libra, and Leo crave social contact. virgo, Gemini, and Sagittarius could be fussy and difficult to please.

February 9 dark of the moon in aquarius. the most accident-prone time of the month, when it’s easy to go astray, get the wrong directions, or otherwise take a misstep. however, don’t hesitate to ask for your own space, and let things end naturally, if that’s the direction the wind blows you. Sagittarius, capricorn, aquarius, pisces, aries, virgo, and cancer: keep it simple. taurus, Leo, Scorpio: something must bend, so it won’t break. am i talking about your determination? 32

WedNesday

suNday

1 2 3 February 10 1 3 4 5 6 new moon2in aquarius; moon void-ofcourse 2:20 am until 4:20 pm, when it moves into pisces. Spend 17time with your 19 18 subconscious. it’s your friend! it some17 18 19 20 21 22 times leads you down dark alleys, but if you’re spending or eating too much, your subconscious will tell you. Learn about a new culture, or lose yourself in art or music. capricorn, aquarius, pisces, aries, Libra, cancer, Gemini, Scorpio: you can change a habit, or try a new tactic. taurus, Leo, Sagittarius, virgo: dependability isn’t where it’s at from others today

moNday

February 11 2 3 4 5 6 7 Waxing moon in pisces; moon void-of-course 12:03 pm until 8:51 pm tuesday. Good day for a bad haircut (it’ll grow back faster!). also good so don’t be surprised 18 for yarn-spinning, 19 20 21 22 23 if daydreams occupy your frontal lobe. capricorn, aquarius, pisces, aries, taurus, cancer, Scorpio, Libra, and Leo: don’t hurry good work — today is all about taking the slow boat. virgo, Gemini, and Sagittarius: you may be joking, but others take you seriously.

Tuesday

February 12 3 4 5 6 7 Waxing moon in pisces; moon void-of-

February 13 4 5 6 8 Waxing moon in aries; ash7 Wednesday. 7 8 9 10 a great day for starting projects that11can be completed quickly. Feel like barbeque tonight? you’re in tune with the moon. 20 21 22 23 24 rushing around could make26Libra, capri23 24 25 27 corn, and cancer irritable, but aquarius, pisces, aries, taurus, Gemini, Sagittarius, Leo, virgo, and Scorpio will thrive on the unexpected news or opportunity.

10 12

25 28

this horoscope traces the passage of the moon, not the sun. Simply read from day to day to watch the moon’s influence as it moves through the signs of the zodiac. | When the moon is in your sun sign, you are beginning a new 28-day emotional cycle, and you can expect increased insight9 and emotionality. When the moon 8 10 11 12 13 moves into the sun sign opposite yours (see below), expect to have difficulties dealing with the opposite sex, family, or authority figures; social or romantic activities will not be at their best. | 26 When the27moon is in28aries, 29 24 25 it opposes Libra, and vice versa. other oppositions are taurus/Scorpio, Gemini/Sagittarius, cancer/capricorn, Leo/aquarius, and virgo/pisces. the moon stays in each sign approximately two and a half days. | as the moon moves between signs, it will sometimes become “void of course,” making no major angles to planets. consider this a null time and try to avoid making or implementing decisions if you can. but it’s great for brainstorming. | For Symboline dai’s sun-sign horoscopes and advice column, visit our Web site at thephoenix.com. Symboline Dai can 9 10 11 12 13 14 be reached at sally@moonsigns.net.

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66 Kind of off-road motorcycle racing 67 “the Star-Spangled banner” contraction 68 pull on a tooth 69 n.y congressman anthony taken down by a sexting scandal in 2011 70 the ravens got four in Super bowl xLvii: abbr. doWN 1 Floor cleaner 2 bathtime sounds 3 San diego neighbor 4 cremona currency, once 5 Wilberforce university’s affiliated denom. 6 part of dJia 7 how more and more old movies can be viewed 9 Jazz pianist Krall 9 Show up to 10 he-cow 11 Words of regret 12 captain’s journal 13 plug-___ 18 yell out 19 opera set in egypt 22 1970s synthesizer brand 23 rapscallions 24 Flockmates 26 parisian street 27 apt. ad stat 29 different ending? 31 “blast!” 33 cartoon skunk ___ Lepew 34 Walk like you’re cool 38 Sciences’ counterpart

26 29

moon KeyS

Jonesin’ _by m att Jones across 1 dirk benedict co-star 4 “Well, aren’t you the fancy one?” 10 maidenform competitor 14 “positively,” to pierre 15 “Let me handle the situation” 16 Stratford-___-avon 17 mail-order publications for those who make kids’ sandwiches? 20 migraine sensation 21 “the iceman cometh” playwright 22 “there will come ___...” 23 easter or christmas 25 hockey legend bobby 28 Stint on broadway 29 “the way i see it,” online 30 “consarn it, ye varmint!” 32 “i Spent my Summer vacation rolling a 300” and such? 35 deli loaves 36 “do this or ___” 37 “Laters” 40 new york Shakespeare Festival founder Joseph 43 about 2 stars for canned hipster beer? 48 musical sequence 51 Wheels 52 Signal 53 india pale ___ 54 passes into law 56 early late show host Jack 57 hyundai model 59 helsinkian, e.g. 60 reason to watch “Sesame Street” and “nova” on mute? 65 Just around the corner

39 “___ te ching” 40 handheld device, for short 41 big iSp, once 42 Keep slogging 44 rum from puerto rico 45 “Sorry, you’re on your own” 46 Full of subtlety 47 bayer Leverkusen’s country: abbr. 49 department store section 50 When someone will be back, often 55 be penitent

56 epitome of easiness 58 pen sound 59 Flower: Sp. 60 he had the first billion-view youtube video 61 Squeezing serpent 62 closest star to you 63 Wrath 64 hosp. areas

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thurs 3/14 keller williams sat 3/16 aZtec two-step thurs 3/21 the expendables tomorrow’s bad seeds the cosmic factory

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