Today
Harvard Art Museums are free from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 32 Quincy St., near Harvard Square. A reminder that all galleries and collections are free to visit Sundays. Current shows include “Clay – Modeling African Design”; “White Shadows: Anneliese Hager and the Camera-less Photograph”; “Prints from the Brandywine Workshop and Archives: Creative Communities”; “Crossroads: Drawing the Dutch Landscape”; “Earthly Delights: 6,000 Years of Asian Ceramics”; and – brace yourself – “Curatorial A(i)gents | Living by Protocol: metaLAB in the Lightbox.” Information is here.
The band Scottish Fish is on the schedule for the Summer Boston Celtic Music Festival at Club Passim. (Photo: Scottish Fish via Facebook)
Summer Boston Celtic Music Festival starting at 2 p.m. at Club Passim, 47 Palmer St., Harvard Square. Outdoor shows are free; indoor shows are $25; the livestream is $5. This summer offshoot of a larger January event begins with Glenville, brings on Scottish Fish an hour later and moves inside in the evening to bring on Copley Street, with Uilleann piper Joey Abarta and fiddler Nathan Gourley; Louise Bichan & Ethan Setiawan; and Jenna Moynihan, who has performed with The Milk Carton Kids, Laura Cortese & The Dance Cards, Darol Anger & The Furies, and as a soloist at Symphony Hall with the Boston Pops. Information is here.
Anabel Gil Trio at 3 p.m. at Longfellow House and the Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site, 105 Brattle St., West Cambridge. Free. Cuban multi-instrumentalist and composer Anabel Gil Díaz performs classical and jazz repertoire throughout the United States and Europe, has studied with artists such as James Galway, Paquito de Rivera, Dave Santoro and Marquis Hill and recently recorded with Terri Lyne Carrington for a jazz standards album scheduled to be released in September 2022. Information is here.
Tuesday
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Frederick Douglass, circa 1879. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
Frederick Douglass Community Reading from 6 to 9 p.m. at Starlight Square, 84 Bishop Allen Drive, Central Square. Free. The holiday tradition of reading Frederick Douglass’ speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July” is hosted by the Central Square Business Improvement District. Information is here.
Smut Slam from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. at The Center for Arts at the Armory, 191 Highland Ave., Somerville. There’s $10 suggested donation at the door for this 18-plus show. Real-life, first-person sex stories from eight to 10 tellers drawn at random, competing for the best five-minute tale of debauchery before a panel of local celebrities. They can’t use notes, props or hate speech – although pretty much anything else goes. “Stories are often funny and/or epic wins, but we want to encourage people to consider sharing their sad, disturbing, poignant, serious, simple and/or ’fail’ experiences too,” organizers say. Lucas Brooks hosts. Information is here.
Wednesday
Family Game Night from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Cambridge Library O’Neill Branch, 70 Rindge Ave., North Cambridge. Free. Play your family or meet new friends over boardgames and puzzles supplied by the library at this all-ages event. Information is here.
Patrick Radden Keefe reads from “Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks” at 6 p.m. at The Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St., Harvard Square. Tickets are $30 including a copy of the book, or $6 without. Bringing together a dozen of Keefe’s most celebrated articles from The New Yorker, “Rogues” explores such areas as the forging $150,000 vintage wines and the quest to bring down a cheerful international black market arms merchant. Rachel Maddow calls the author “a national treasure.” Well-fitting masks are required. Information is here.
Screen on the Green showing of “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” from 7:15 to 9:30 p.m. at Hoyt Field (Gilmore and Montague streets off Western Avenue), Riverside. Free. This city-sponsored event travels from park to park over the summer. Reviewer Tom Meek gave this first film in the series a thumbs-up in 2018: “If you’re a Spider-Man fan, there’s lots packed in here for you as insider nuggets, while it all also shoots off in a new direction. It’s packaged to cut smartly across cultural and generational lines, with animation that’s similarly something new and something old.” Information is here.
Thursday
Drop-in art project crafting sessions from 4 to 6 p.m. at the powder magazine of Magazine Beach, at the river end of Magazine Street in the Cambridgeport neighborhood. Free, but an RSVP is requested. Fiber artist Michelle Lougee and arts organizer Cecily Miller – Cambridgeport residents – invite help creating a Magazine Beach Tapestry warning of the environmental dangers of single-use plastic that will go in the newly opened Mass Audubon Nature Center in the beach’s powder magazine building. Volunteers of all ages are invited to participate, looping small plastic trash items such as bottle tops, packaging and discarded toys (all cleaned and safe to handle) to a mesh background. The work will be outside under a shady tree if the weather is good, inside the powder magazine if it is too hot or rainy. Information is here.
Old Powder House tours from 6 to 8 p.m. at Nathan Tufts/Powderhouse Park, College Avenue and Broadway, Somerville. You may have passed by the powder house hundreds of times over the years, but the Somerville Historic Preservation Commission offers a chance to get inside and hear a historic narrative of the site. Information is here.
Boston University Poetry MFA Cohort reading from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Grolier Poetry Book Shop on 6 Plympton St., Harvard Square. Admission is $5, but the store will accept donations of more. This Black Box Reading Series event may well hold the greatness among its writers – you’ll have to attend to find out. Information is here.
Friday
SocaFusion. (Via YouTube)
Friday Fete from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Centanni Park, Third and Otis streets, East Cambridge, outside the Multicultural Arts Center. The Cambridge Youth Steel Orchestra and Tempo International perform Caribbean-Afro rhythms with messages of peace and unity. The musicians are joined by SocaFusion dancers, who’ll teach some moves before things really get going. This is a Multicultural Arts Center event with sponsors that include BioMed Realty and East Cambridge Saving Bank. Information is here.
SubDrift Mela: Celebrating South Asian Creative Community from 7 to 9 p.m. at Starlight Square, 84 Bishop Allen Drive, Central Square. Free. Music, poetry, storytelling, dance and more celebrates the talent and creativity of the local South Asian diaspora. Information is here.
Poets Darcie Dennigan, Mikko Harvey and Shelley Wong read from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Grolier Poetry Book Shop on 6 Plympton St., Harvard Square. Admission is $5, but the store will accept donations of more. Information is here.
Men of Steel dance revue at 8 p.m. at The Cantab Underground, 738 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square. Tickets are $15. If you miss Cambridge’s old Paradise club or are wearing out your copy of “Magic Mike” on DVD, this traveling show of choreographed male dancers may be for you. Information is here.
Saturday
Family Fun Saturdays from 10 a.m. to noon at Longfellow House and the Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site, 105 Brattle St., West Cambridge. Free. This kid- and family-focused event (which takes place every week) starts with story time with a ranger, includes a tour of the historic house and always has some kind of interactive activity toward the end. Information is here.
CVV.vino. (Via Instagram)
Chandler Ward and CVV.vino perform from 7 to 9 p.m. at Starlight Square, 84 Bishop Allen Drive, Central Square. Free. Cambridge Rindge and Latin School graduates take the stage for a hip-hop and production showcase. Information is here.
Sunday
Valente Summer Sundays launch party from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Cambridge Library Valente Branch, 826 Cambridge St., Wellington-Harrington. Free. A performance by folk artist Grace Givertz for good listeners, bubbles and chalk art for the distracted and refreshments for all are at this start to a summer-fun series. Information is here.
Poet and translator Martha Collins. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
Poetry reading from 3 to 4 p.m. at Longfellow House and the Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site, 105 Brattle St., West Cambridge. Free. Local poets Martha Collins (“Because What Else Could I Do”) and Russo-American Philip Nikolayev (the translator behind “The Star of Dazzling Ecstasy: 79 Poems by Alexander Pushkin”) perform in the open air at this historic site. Information is here.
Conner Habib reads from “Hawk Mountain” in conversation with Paul Tremblay at 6 p.m. at Porter Square Books, 25 White St., Porter Square. Free. The host of the podcast “Against Everyone with Conner Habib” – which features conversations with artists, intellectuals and countercultural figures and covers topics as wide-ranging as punk rock, philosophy, pornography and occultism – has plenty of nonfiction writing out there; this is a first novel, and follows an English teacher’s reluctant reintroduction to his high school bully. Interviewer Paul Tremblay is the author of horror such as “Disappearance at Devil’s Rock” and crime novel “The Little Sleep.” Information is here.
