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ELIZABETH RAU

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A few great places to go when you want to look great

Altered images
You're new to town and you want to get all dolled up for that lecture on cognitive linguistics. What to do?

By: ELIZABETH RAU | September 27, 2011

Gift Guide 2010: Funky, chic, and handmade in Rhode Island for the holidays

The art of the craft
You're broke. The money-sucking holidays are coming up, and you've got to buy presents for a truckload of people, including a picky cousin whose house is already chock-full of stuff that's never used.

By: ELIZABETH RAU | December 08, 2010

Granola with a conscience

Munchies
With all those honey-flavored oats and nuts, granola is tempting enough for Rhode Island's neo-hippie set. But add a scoop of goodwill to the mix and you invite a veritable stampede of Birkenstocks.

By: ELIZABETH RAU | November 24, 2010

World Toilet Day: The art of the flush

Public Works Dept.
Most people sit on their toilets. Some people paint them — for a good cause.

By: ELIZABETH RAU | November 10, 2010

Now playing at Brown: advice from a former student

Audio Dept.
Don't put sharp knives in the dishwasher. If you're in a lousy marriage, get out. Pack light. Wise words from a doting aunt? Guess again.

By: ELIZABETH RAU | November 05, 2010

Pushing to remove shackles from pregnant prisoners

Behind Bars
It sounds almost too cruel to be true: a woman inmate is shackled to a hospital bed while delivering her baby. Sadly, hundreds of women across the country endure that humiliation, an unthinkable indignity for an already downtrodden group.

By: ELIZABETH RAU | October 13, 2010

Providence-based Edesia wants to end world hunger. But are we willing to pay for it?

Local product, global cause
In the North End of Providence, in a small factory not far from a set of train tracks and a Walmart, a new non-profit is taking up an immodest mission: ending world hunger.

By: ELIZABETH RAU | October 06, 2010

Two killings, a documentary, and the healing of a nation

Film dept.
One of the most powerful scenes in The Two Escobars is an interview with a Colombian assassin who chuckles as he recalls how his boss, the drug lord Pablo Escobar, compulsively listened to a soccer match on a portable radio as the gunshots of police hunting him down in a ditch rang out in the distance.

By: ELIZABETH RAU | September 16, 2010

A sail, some pipe, and a flying contraption destined to crash

Airborne
They're typical teenagers. They like sports, surfing, the Dave Matthews Band, girls and any food put in front of them, except tomatoes. Oh, they're fearless too, not shy about flying off a pier in a homemade winged chariot and plunging into the churning waters below.

By: ELIZABETH RAU | August 18, 2010

Bristol’s crusading lawyer goes Hollywood

Exoneration
If you haven’t heard of Betty Anne Waters, the Bristol pub owner and single mother of two who put herself through college and law school in a nearly three-decade crusade to overturn her brother’s murder conviction, you will soon.

By: ELIZABETH RAU | July 14, 2010

Embedded

A casualty of war, and a fierce debate
Linda Bhatia gave her son’s Scout badges to his old pack and his 700 books to his alma mater, Brown University, but she will never let go of the things he had in his final days: his compass, the dimes in his pocket, his wallet, the watch he was probably wearing when a roadside bomb killed him in Afghanistan.

By: ELIZABETH RAU | May 26, 2010

At the G.I. Joe Convention: The Baroness and a ‘slice of Americana’

Gatherings
Roadblock flew in from Miami, and Tunnel Rat took the train from Jersey. But it was Baroness, aka Penelope Pappas, who got the cameras clicking at the 17th annual G.I. Joe Collectors’ Convention.

By: ELIZABETH RAU | May 05, 2010

Terry McMillan brings her groove to Providence

Visitations
Terry McMillan, best known for her blockbuster novels Waiting to Exhale and How Stella Got Her Groove Back , made a quick stop in South Providence the other day to raise money for the Community Preparatory School and talk shop — with 10-year-olds.

By: ELIZABETH RAU | April 28, 2010

Reefer gladness at the Crowne Plaza

Remedy
Thirty-five years ago, a doctor took Elvy Musikka aside and told her that she’d go blind from her glaucoma if she didn’t start smoking. Marijuana, that is.

By: ELIZABETH RAU | April 21, 2010

Hidden letters from the Holocaust

Dispatches
Thirteen years ago, a carpenter demolishing an old tenement in Amsterdam found 86 letters and postcards and one telegram hidden in the attic floor.

By: ELIZABETH RAU | April 08, 2010

Potatoes and a pennywhistle on Somerset Street

In the Garden
Drive south on Broad Street past the markets and churches, take a left on Somerset and there, in a clearing of raised garden beds behind a chain-link fence, you will find Phil Edmonds with his peas.

By: ELIZABETH RAU | April 02, 2010

A Dutch treat lands in Providence

Sweets
Not long ago, a Brown student with a big idea decided to bake cookies. A ho-hum sugar cookie wouldn't do. No, this budding baker wanted something a bit more exotic.

By: ELIZABETH RAU | March 10, 2010

Words from women in prison

Corrections Dept.
In her early years as a Providence police officer, Tabitha Glavin didn't think much about why women ended up in prison; her job was to put them there.

By: ELIZABETH RAU | March 03, 2010

A Palestinian student remembers his Israeli friend

Crossing Lines
Schaefer, the Brown University student recently killed by a suspected drunk driver on the streets of Providence, left behind hundreds of friends, including soldiers in the Israeli army, with whom he served for three years before coming to Brown.

By: ELIZABETH RAU | February 24, 2010

Now playing — RISD: The Musical!

Revues
We all know RISD students like to paint and draw, but can they hoof it? Or belt out a show tune and carry a giant pencil at the same time? Well, yes, it turns out.

By: ELIZABETH RAU | February 17, 2010

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