The Agenda

The author continues his tradition of bizarre meditations on film

By Evan Villari

[Note: This article first appeared in The Agenda #16]

Cheat Sheet: An Eastern European family hires Evan to transfer some film to video. The film, from an orphanage in Russia, is of a little girl this family is thinking of adopting. When the people at the orphanage strip the little girl down, Evan becomes uncomfortable with it, and begins to wonder if he might be involved in something illegal. This gives him the chance to reflect on some of his favorite Eastern European filmmakers.

And so patiently I waited. Happiness for a possibly sterile family was depending on my abilities. Railway tracks were quite literally crossed to get here. It was the end of the month and I wasn't proud of what I was about to do. A craigslist post had brought me here. He said she was from Russia. I of course knew this could have meant just about any satellite nation (formeror otherwise) in the Eastern Bloc. Although I must confess when the shoves get pushed around, my ultra-west, red-painting ignorance had a way of calling the whole of it Russia too. My thoughts wandered to a work by Jan Svankmajer.

Do you know anything about the old train tunnel
underneath College Hill? Supposedly there was some kind of riot in it in the
early '90s. The North Main St.
Entrance to the tunnel, near Mill's Tavern, is now sealed shut with a large
metal wall. Thanks. - Dan Lawlor

The Agenda was saddened to learn
of the recent passing of a beloved figure in Providence's arts & music community. The
following memorial for Eugene P. Severens was written by longtime friend and
musical contemporary Terry Linehan.

by John Taraborelli

My fellow board members, I come before you today to silence the growing voices of concern, speculation, rumor and innuendo. There has been much controversy surrounding our fine institution as of late and much ballyhoo has been made of the sudden, indefinite closure of the Dr. Timothy Leary Memorial XXXtreme Monkey and Primate Conservancy, or as it is affectionately known, the monkey zoo. The dearth of concrete information coming out from behind our walls has given rise to a growing tide of gossip and criticism-some of it baseless, some of it startlingly close to home. Today I intend to go on record with the most current and frank assessment of our situation.

Providence College Bans The Vagina Monologues

By Eve Wartenberg Condon

[Note: This article first appeared in The Agenda #16 (March 16, 2006)]

To exclude [The Vagina Monologues] from
a Catholic Campus is to say either that these women are wrong or that their
experience has nothing important to say to use. [T]hese are voices that a
Catholic university must listen to if we are to understand human experience and
if we are to be faithful to the one who welcomed all men and women."

—Rev. Kevin Wildes, President of Loyola University,
New Orleans

"Freedom in the Catholic tradition, and even in the American political
tradition, is not the right to do anything. Freedom in the academy is always
subject to a particular discipline. It is never an absolute."

—Bishop John M. D'Arcy, University
of Notre Dame, South Bend, Ind.