The last thing I care to hear is some 20-something that's lived downtown for four months lecture me on the "realities of the city".
This time around, the colonel, who has ruled Libya since 1969, had coffee in downtown Rome after delivering a lecture about Islam to 500 young women chosen by a modeling agency.
After the lecture, Harold joined his family and they went downtown to their favorite gelato shop, where Harold had his life-altering epiphany.
Everyone involved is eager to bring back the thousands of people who once worked in the offices, stayed in the hotel rooms, attended lectures in the classrooms -- and spent their dollars at downtown restaurants and stores.
One inmate, Viniece Walker, told him it was because they lacked "the moral life of downtown" — meaning, she said, exposure to "plays, museums, concerts, lectures, you know".
In the days leading up to the show's opening, however, the hype has only increased, with the city's downtown business development group offering "Hairspray" dance parties and lectures on big hair at the prestigious Walters Arts Museum.
The QT Fest takes place at the Alamo Drafthouse in downtown Austin, a blend of movie theater and lecture hall where a wait staff as sure footed as Sherpas serve sandwiches and beer in the dark.
The event: a lecture at the International Center of Photography, when that venerable institution was downtown.
Bill Cosby cancelled two appearances at a downtown performing-arts center, Whoopi Goldberg backed out of a lecture series, and Wynton Marsalis, Smokey Robinson, the Temptations, and the O'Jays decided not to honor concert dates.
"The project explores O'Neill's life in New London from 1885-1915," said Robert A. Richter, a Connecticut College professor who will lecture on "Eugene O'Neill's Maritime Years" on July 5 at Connecticut College's downtown campus.
