PROVIDENCE

Mixing it up

B. + Sage + Roz + Chelsy + Stefan + more
B. DOLAN and SAGE FRANCIS provided memorable highlights at this year’s Rock the Bells in Mansfield; watch the Strange Famous reps slay Jerky’s Bar (401.621.2244) with special guest SLEEP on THURSDAY (the 12th).

By PROVIDENCE PHOENIX MUSIC STAFF | November 11, 2009

The South's opt-out program

Idiot Box
During the Civil War

By MATT BORS | November 11, 2009

Devendra Banhart | What Will We Be

Warner/Reprise (2009)
With the title of his latest album, this lovably polyglot erstwhile (and unwitting) “freak” folkie turned gallery darling and global lounge lizard asks a valid question. Indeed, what will we be this time?

By MICHAEL BRODEUR | November 10, 2009

Meet the Marlboro Man

Hoopleville
They shoot horses, don't they?

By DAVID KISH | November 11, 2009

Make-believe Main Street

Lifestyle centers create public squares in private places. Can a nation undone by sprawl be saved by the Mall?
WaterFire, bocce, oh my!

By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | November 10, 2009

A turbine grows in Warwick

Windy City
If all goes well, Shalom Housing in Warwick, a division of Jewish Seniors Agency, will be the home of a 100-kilowatt wind turbine, part of new federal “green” stimulus award of up to $1.5 million from the US Housing and Urban Development to retrofit the 30-year-old, 100-unit low-cost senior housing project.

By RICHARD ASINOF | November 04, 2009

Black and gay in Rhode Island

Getting Out
It’s hard to imagine a tangle of identities more marginalized than that of the black gay man in Rhode Island.

By ELLEN CUSHING | November 05, 2009

Brick Oven Meatballs

Secretly, but deliciously, Italian
You can imagine them arguing about whether to ’fess up before they named the restaurant.

By BILL RODRIGUEZ | November 04, 2009

Newspapering the hard way

As the ProJo Turns
Tom Heslin, executive editor of the Providence Journal , does not say much in public about the broadsheet. And little surprise. The ProJo , which demands transparency elsewhere, has issued a long string of “no comments” about its own affairs.

By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | November 04, 2009

Review: The Men Who Stare at Goats

Bleating hearts tame Goats
Here’s a subject that really could have used a Stanley Kubrick or a John Frankenheimer or a Robert Altman. But are there any great cinematic satirists left, auteurs with the knack for black comedy and cold-blooded irony?

By PETER KEOUGH | November 06, 2009

Review: Borderlands

Gold rush
It’s tempting, and easy, to describe Borderlands solely via comparisons to other games.

By MITCH KRPATA | November 09, 2009

Paging Dilbert

Fonting around at the Urinal. Plus, celebrity karaoke, and more.
What’s black and white and re(a)d all over? Certainly not the Providence Urinal, whose circulation has been falling faster than a 1000-pound safe pushed out of a sky-scraper window.

By PHILLIPE AND JORGE | November 04, 2009

Lighthouse Retrofit Plan

Hoopleville
Your Casino Here

By DAVID KISH | November 04, 2009

Review: Michael Jackson's This Is It

Is this it?
The Star Wars –style titles that begin Kenny Ortega’s hastily assembled Michael Jackson tribute documentary explain that the film has been whittled down from 100 hours of behind-the-scenes video shot between last April and June during rehearsals for the King of Pop’s planned 50-date “This Is It” London concert series.

By BRETT MICHEL | November 12, 2009

Monsters of rock

Heavenly hardness from Chinese Stars and Six Finger Satellite
Full-lengths from local rock icons Six Finger Satellite and the Chinese Stars provide a decimating double-dose of kinetic madness.

By CHRIS CONTI | November 10, 2009

Review: Disney's A Christmas Carol

State-of-the-art technology allows actors to reach new heights of hamminess
Charles Dickens made a mint with readings of A Christmas Carol , but a century and a half of technological progress has not been kind to the property.

By PETER KEOUGH | November 09, 2009

Julian Casablancas | Phrazes for the Young

RCA (2009)
Someday, a great rock film will be made. The opening shot is of a wasted rock star, bejeweled and clad in the finest leather, with white panthers circling the living room of his Parthenon-esque manse as he hits PLAY on a comically large reel-to-reel.

By DANIEL BROCKMAN | November 09, 2009

Morrissey | Swords

UME Imports (2009)
Morrissey — begrudging patron saint of all that is emotionally desolate and otherwise comfortably bummed — is but a mere mortal, as his recent collapse on stage proves.

By ZETH LUNDY | November 06, 2009

Madness and mayhem

Perishable’s Anna Bella Eema gets primal
So you think that ghosts and goblins and vampires and werewolves are pretty scary creatures even when it’s not Halloween, hmmm? Well, that’s perfectly natural, but there’s one word in that sentence that lords it over every gibbering monster ever conceived: think.

By BILL RODRIGUEZ | November 03, 2009

Gang of four

New work at 5 Traverse and Providence College
The elegantly simple shapes of Providence artist Lisa Perez’s shallow wooden wall sculptures at 5 Traverse Gallery take on charming, wobbly, bubbly forms with uneven edges, as if they were worn away by rivers.

By GREG COOK | November 03, 2009