See movies like a student: Now’s your chance to see first-run films in a first-class setting for chump change. The Bridge: Cinema de Lux at 40th and Walnut streets is running a special promotion for Penn and Drexel faculty and staff through Aug. 31—show your faculty/staff ID at the box office and pick up tickets for you and a guest at the student discount rate. Visit www.thebridgecinema.com or the theater for more information.

Fresh off the farm: The best of Pennsylvania agriculture is now on campus every Thursday from noon to 6 p.m. Organic produce from two local growers, Livengood Produce and Oley Valley Farm, and organic bread from Big Sky Bakery is offered every week at a new outdoor farmers’ market in the Fresh Air Food Plaza at 33rd and Spruce streets. The new market is part of an ongoing project sponsored by several groups, including the White Dog Café-backed Philadelphia Fair Food Project, which promotes local agriculture through direct farm-to-consumer sales.

Planned reading: New in hardback from the American Planning Association: “Redesigning Cities: Principles, Practice, Implementation” by Practice Professor of City and Regional Planning Jonathan Barnett. Barnett’s book sorts out the lessons of the last half-century or so of planning, zoning and building and offers principles by which we can design more attractive and livable communities.

See a meteor at the Arboretum: Penn Presents and the Morris Arboretum are teaming up to put on a very special fundraiser for their children’s education programs—a private concert by Peter Cincotti, already an acclaimed jazz vocalist/pianist at the tender young age of 19. Tickets for the July 31 event at the Arboretum start at $100. For more information, contact Jessica Andersen at 215-898-6702 or andersel@ac.upenn.edu.

Slam dunk cancer: If you’re an African-American hoopster age 30 or older, Penn’s got game. The Abramson Cancer Center can use you for the 50 Hoops basketball tournament on July 27 and 28, which promotes understanding of prostate cancer. Those interested can contact Charnita M. Zeigler-Johnson at 215-573-5264 or czeigler@cceb.med.upenn.edu. More info on 50 Hoops can be found at www.50hoops.org.

90 minutes of uplift: Having honored—and bench-pressed—thousands of notables for their achievements and service to humanity, Indian philosopher-author-artist Sri Chinmoy has turned his attention to academics. The guru paid a visit to Penn June 10 to bestow “Lifting Up the World With a Oneness-Heart” awards on 15 people—14 of them current or former faculty. Each received a medal from Chinmoy after being literally lifted up by him atop a 17-pound platform for a few seconds with one hand, from a seated position. Many of the honorees have appeared in these pages, including 250-pound Professor of Sociology Douglas Massey, who said afterwards, “I’ve never been bench-pressed before.”