The Brochstein Pavilion, Rice University's newest set of facades on campus, will open tomorrow for a sneak-peak preview for Rice students, faculty and staff. It will be open to the public starting Friday April 25th and promises to offer guests a wide range of tasty (though probably spendy) treats including coffee, snacks and sandwiches. The Broch. Pav. is situated smack in the middle of a central courtyard between the back of the Fondren Library,......

In the wake of a disappointing 0-fer season in Conference USA and the firing of head coach Willis Wilson, Rice's basketball program is in dire need of a turnaround. They may have found the captain to right their ship in recently available Cal-Berkley coach Ben Braun. After successes at Cal and Eastern Michigan, Braun's Golden Bears floundered this year, leading to his termination by the People's Republic of Berkley. The Owls swooped in and signed......

::How do you say 'suspense' in French?:: Tonight, the Tournées French Film Festival presents a screening of the award-winning 2005 film Caché (or Hidden for the Franco-illiterate) at Rice University. Directed by Austrian director Michael Haneke, who most recently directed the English-speaking remake to 1997’s Funny Games, the film’s plot circles around the life of successful literary critic and television host Georges (played by Daniel Auteuil), his book publishing wife (the always amazing Juliette......

::L’elisir d’amore:: If you’re one of those jerks that didn’t do anything special for your honey on V-day last month, you have one more chance tonight to make up for it (although, we can’t promise that you’ll be totally forgiven for being six weeks late). Rice University’s Shepherd of Music are holding their last performance of L’elisir d’amore tonight (translated to “The Elixir of Love,” for those of us who made a D in......

Charles Waldheim, visiting Cullinan Professor at Rice, and Associate Dean and Director of the Landscape Architecture Program at the University of Toronto, will be at Anderson Hall on Rice's campus Monday, March 10th at 5:00pm. Professor Waldheim is known for his pioneering work in landscape architecture, and urbanism. He is editor of the Landscape Urbanism Reader, Post-Fordist Public Works, has published numerous articles, and spoken and lectured at major US and international universities. Now,......

As the Astros start their Spring Training schedule today in Osceola County, the college baseball season has been underway for a couple of weeks now. The annual Houston College Classic returns to Minute Maid Park this weekend as one of the premier regional showcases of top-level NCAA baseball. Starting on Friday and continuing through Sunday, the Juice Box will be host to an almost non-stop flow of games. The teams participating in the tourney are:......

Professor Trinh T. Minh-ha, renowned film artist and curator, will be at the MFA today, tomorrow and Saturday to discuss her career and work. Currently a Professor of Rehtoric and Gender Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, Minh-ha has focused on film and cinema as a medium for cultural critique. She has completed installation exhibitions at the Kyoto Art Biennale, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, and most recently at......

Houstonist Photo of the Day - Rice University @ Houston by P3t3rT...

The Chron picked this up a few days ago, but we feel it's worth a second mention. The Rice Design Alliance in conjunction with the Houston Chapter of the AIA announced two Houston architects, Murphy Mears Architects, (Kirby Mears, Walter Murphy, Kyle Humphries, Jamie Miller, and Gina Lyons) and Stephanie Eugster as finalists in the recent 99K House Competition. The finalists were selected out of 182 entrants proposing a sustainable, affordable house that addresses......

• A cold front that will be preceded by a storm system is expected to drop temperatures this afternoon. Don't forget your coats and umbrellas. • Two suspected Conroe drug dealers were shot during a sting involving the Montgomery County sheriff's office. The sting occurred in a busy shopping center parking lot and an officer was nearly hit by the suspects vehicle. • Police in the Rice Village area are on the lookout for......

::Rice University's Second Annual Asian Film Festival:: Rice Cinema has put together an amazing lineup films this weekend to round out the end of its Second Annual Asian Film Festival. Houstonist would go to them all if we could. There's an erotic thriller, animation, documentary and a film based on the novel by Houston's own Bapsi Sidhwa. Go forth and prosper! Friday, February 8, 7:30pm Lust, Caution Ang Lee’s lush spy thriller set in......

The Houston Business Journal picked up this story yesterday, and while we're over-joyed, we can't say that we're all that surprised. We knew those Rice kids were up to something sustainable. A team of Rice students lead by Roque Sanchez and David Dewane have won $100,000 and permission to compete in the US Department of Energy's fourth Solar Decathlon in Washington D.C. Rice will be joined by a number of other schools and each......

Texas schools came out of Saturday's college basketball action with a collective 3-2 record, spread across two different conferences. (Big XII and Conference USA) The premier showdown of the weekend pitted the 12th ranked Texas Longhorns against Bobby Knight's Red Raiders of Texas Tech. With an outstanding defensive effort put up by head coach Rick Barnes' boys, the Longhorns were able to run away with a 73-47 victory in Austin. Texas won its 12th straight......

They tell us we should always dance as if no one is watching, but this weekend a big group of dancers will be dancing away at the Rice Student Union Center (6100 Main) with or without you in the audience. Ah yes, it is hot and sultry milonga time at the Houston Tango Festival, a happy weekend indeed for Argentinian dance lovers and high-slitted skirt enthusiasts. Organizers have lots of great events planned all......

Okay, okay, we know, you don't need to remind us (we are sensitive about our largesse), we're in shape - round, round is technically a shape. We cannot help ourselves at all, will power schmill power, who needs it? There is one perfect food, a luscious bundling of all of the food groups. The burger, the tasty, juicy cheesy with bacon and all of the veggies and a schmear of mustard and a double-schmear of......

While you might correlate cabinet gazing with weekend antiquing with your mom, tonight's Mambo Jambo exhibit opening at Rice Gallery (6100 Main St.) might just change your mind. Apparent OCD Kansas-born / Norway-based artist Charlie Roberts calls himself a 'maximilast' artist and enjoys giving you loads (and loads) of eye candy to digest by packing sculptures, paintings, posters and other various pretty shinies in each of his pieces. Specifically showcased tonight: A colossal wooden cabinet......

We’ve been walking around Rice Univeristy recently and couldn’t help but notice literally tons of construction. It turns out that Rice is currently undergoing an explosive period of development, adding roughly one million square feet of built space to its already 3.7 million square foot campus by 2009. This is pretty impressive as is, but we were more than a little surprised (knowing that universities are businesses like any other) that Rice was recently......

Today the Rice Design Alliance kicks off this years spring lecture series 30N 60S: Latin American Architecture Revisited with guest speaker Francisco Liernur. Proffessor Liernur is Chair of the School of Architecture at Di Tella University in Buenos Aires, Argentina and has been a visiting professor at Harvard, Princeton, Sci-Arc, and Columbia University. His books include Writings on Twentieth Century Architecture in Latin America and Architecture in Latin America 1965-1985. Following lectures will focus......

::Rice University Scientia Lecture: "Aspects of Memory":: If you are anything like us, the extent of your long term memory is directly dependent on well vs. premium liquor from yesterday's happy hour. Hell, we are still trying to remember where we parked our car this morning so that we can go to lunch. Rice University Scientia, an Institute for the History of Science and Culture, presents the colloquium "Aspects of Memory" by guest lecturer Rachelle......

A Rice scientist has created what the Chronicle is calling "the darkest substance known to man," a carpet of carbon nanotubes that's reflective of less than .05 percent of light directly shined on it, making it a hundred times darker than the paint on a black Corvette. (Why a Corvette? Don't ask us...perhaps they got to expense the vehicle for "testing purposes" and decided they might as well go all out. At least, that's......

::KTRU DJ Night at the Proletariat:: Yes, folks the rumors are true. The Proletariat will officially be closing it's doors on Feb 3rd, 2008. We've had a few weeks to stomach the news, but still get a little misty-eyed when we think about those damn red walls being knocked down. Leading up to the closing, the Pro is hitting it hard, with some killer events scheduled to bring the prolific Houston dive down with......

From local Houston headlines, we bring you these weekend news bits... • The parents of missing Rice student, Matthew Wilson have added $10,000 of their own money to the reward for information leading to his whereabouts. The total reward amount is now $25,000. This includes $5000 from Crime Stoppers and $10,000 from Rice University. If you have information, please contact Crime Stoppers at 713.222.TIPS • A man was ejected from his car and killed......

From local Houston headlines, we bring you these weekend news bits... • Recent Katy Freeway closures are sure to cause a few headaches. As of 10 p.m., Friday night, the Katy Freeway eastbound ramp to Beltway 8 northbound will be closed until April 2008. The westbound ramp to Beltway 8 northbound will be closed until August 2008. • Three Houston area residents have filed a lawsuit against Microsoft for breach of contract because they......

Rice junior Matthew Wilson, 20, is still missing, and while authorities are not treating the case as foul play, concern is growing. Wilson, whose car is gone but who left his cell phone in the apartment he shares with a roommate, often goes into near-isolation around finals period, say those who know him. His roommate, upon not seeing him for several days, assumed he had merely missed him on his way to or from the......

Rice alum and hometown hero Lance Berkman read the Mitchell Report. (Just like everyone else, it seems, on the planet.) He applauds Andy Pettite for coming forward and spoke Sunday about his support for the former Houston Astro, reports the Chronicle, but he's ready for some answers from the Mitchell report's biggest name: Roger Clemens. I don't think it's good enough to make a blanket statement and say the guy's lying. Now that Andy's come......

Kermit, you’re wrong. Jeff Kaplan, owner and founder of New Living -- an eco-friendly home supply store, is out to show us that in fact it’s quite easy being green. But, honestly Kermit can’t be blamed. Times have changed and surely back in the ‘80’s being eco-friendly wasn’t such a piece of cake. New Living, the “Healthy Home Essentials” store will open in the Rice Village sometime early this week, and offer customers the......

We're always looking for more ways to learn about our great city, so why not start at home? Not only is it interesting to know about the plat upon which you live, but it can also help to paint part of the picture of Houston's interesting, albeit short history, and there are quite a few on and offline resources to help with research. An easy way to start is to find the specific name of......

We realize that we're almost a week late on this, but as the only media outlet in the city unafraid to actually directly quote the incident in question, we felt it was our duty to follow up on the story of the Rice MOB's halftime show against Tulsa this past Saturday. For both of you who follow Rice athletics (Houstonist fun fact! Rice has sports teams besides baseball!), you know that after making a bowl......

Houstonist has plans to provide you, constant reader, with our annual list of gift suggestions. However, if you are interested in getting a jump on shopping and are not one of those year 'round shoppers who locates the perfect gift in the clearance section, or at a craft show - we got the goods for you. Tonight from 6:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m. (and in conjunction with Bellaire's "Holiday in the Park"), you can......

Good morning, Houston. If you're hoping that the United States will one day be free of its dependence on foreign natural gas — and we're sure at least one of you is — this isn't your lucky day: According to a report from the Energy Forum at Rice University's Baker Institute, there's no end in sight to our use of imported gas. Natural gas accounted for 22 percent of total primary energy use in......