Imagine a music festival with virtually no electricity or amplifiers, no sponsors and a resounding message of inclusivity. Imagine it’s happening right here in PVD this fall, with more than 300 brass and drum wielding musicians marching down the street. Sounds good, right? This is Pronk!, our local representation of the many honk fests that […]
Let’s face it: Central Falls and Pawtucket don’t get the respect they deserve. Many know of them, but know little about them. This September, we have an opportunity to change that through Open Doors RI. The two cities will be on showcase for a day, providing a glimpse into centuries of industry and the ensuing […]
Filmmaker Skip Shea still lives in the same town where he grew up, where he went to school and where he was sexually abused by Catholic priests. For years he was passed from one predator to the next, all of them allegedly in recovery from their unholy desires. The town is Uxbridge, Massachusetts, right over […]
Your typical bag of leafy greens starts thousands of miles from PVD. It’s grown outside in heavily irrigated row after row out in California, Arizona or Mexico. Then it’s picked, sorted, washed and packed into a refrigerated truck where it will stay for about a week, losing freshness and nutritional value as it’s jostled around […]
Instead of getting kicked out of the Providence Flea Market for being too close to the action, the poet Ben Bernthal was invited to be a part of it. He set up there with his portable typewriter, his triangular table and his small rectangles of paper, doing what he’s done for several years now: Writing […]
Madcap Mondays aren’t the dreary open mics you see in the movies, though there are similarities. Folks full of beer do shout from the audience, some performers tiptoe onto the stage one stiff breeze away from emotional collapse, not everybody knows all the words to the songs they’re singing. But the shouts from around the […]
On a spring afternoon, I’m off work but I’m working on paying for my car. The Lyft Driver app’s pink destination dot steers me toward a neighborhood not far from my own. I pick up a high-school-aged girl. The app chimes in to tell me it’s a two-stop trip. Stop number one is a shopping […]
A stroll on the bike bath by the Gano Street revealed a tantalizingly impromptu adventure. There, right beside the trail, leaned a bright red JUMP bike, available for rent. Sure, I could walk my way as far as I wanted to go (I had to break in my fancy barista boy boots anyway) but, I […]
A couple of Juan Antonio Cortez’s buddies wanted to go ride bikes. There would be music, girls, maybe even some spray paint — everything a teenaged boy could desire. But young Juan could not go because he’d been legally mandated to spend his nights at New Urban Arts. Juan would have to spend another night […]
Muggs Fogarty has become something of a PVD essential. Right up there with trolley busses and Brown University students crossing the street in dream-like trances, the city just wouldn’t be the same without them. A musician both in Lookers and on their own as Sweetpea Pumpkin, a bona-fide published poet, a multifaceted massage therapist and […]