Dance parties in the street, Free Fun Fridays, and more events this week
By: Jim Martinho - Thursday, Jun 25, 2015 - 4:19pm
We really are spoiled here in the summers, and I don’t just mean because we get so used to warm weather that the air conditioning in a chilly restaurant feels worse than all of February’s blizzards combined. I mean because there’s so much stuff to do. This week Cambridge throws down on Mass Ave, Everett gets a new craft distillery, and the Museum of Science explains the, um, science, behind Pixar movies.
* The Highland Street Foundation Free Fun Fridays series kicks off ten weeks of free admission to treasured Massachusetts cultural institutions. I mean, not literally treasured, haha, we’re only going because it’s free, not paying the regular price of, what, the equivalent of three beers probably? Tomorrow’s featured venues including the MIT Museum, the Peabody Essex Museum, and Tanglewood. 6.26. Various times. FREE
* Nothing beats dancing in the street. Definitely not dancing in the sidewalk (when you trip on an uneven part of the pavement and then try to play it off like you’re breaking into a dance, real smooth, big guy). The annual City of Cambridge Dance Party welcomes thousands of Cantabridgians and visitors to get down in the middle of Mass Ave — and yeah, for non-dancers: Mass Ave will be closed in Central Square. Honking your horn only encourages them, you know. 6.26. 7p. FREE
* The third annual Boston Jerkfest Caribbean food festival returns to the South End, where the only thing that burns hotter than the scotch bonnets is your friend saying, “The Jerkfest called — they’re running out of you!” Friday night’s Rum & Brew tasting gets the party started, followed by two sessions on Saturday featuring top local Caribbean restaurants, chef demos, and two stages of live music. Wait, wait, I got it: “What’s the difference? You’re the Jerkfest’s headlining musical act!” 6.26 and 6.27. 6p, 11a and 4p. $50/$5-20
* After months of work converting an antique factory into a state of the art distillery, bar and showroom, Short Path Distillery celebrates its opening weekend with an open house Saturday. The first craft distillery to open in Everett since prohibition brings together old-world distilling techniques and new-world science in its signature gin and rum — probably the two best spirits for refreshing summer cocktails, and definitely the two best for my version of the card game Gin Rummy (it’s just War but you get drunk on gin and rum). 6.27. 12p. FREE
* Opening Sunday and running through January at the Museum of Science, The Science Behind Pixar showcases the science, technology, engineering, and math concepts used by the studio’s animators and computer scientists. Sure, making the movies is science, but Toy Story 3 playing at a bar with the sound off and nearly bringing me to tears? Friends, that is an art. The exhibit is still great for parents who want to trick their kids into doing something educational, or maybe even eventually becoming a scientist or computer expert who helps save the world from an extreme weather event/foreign attack/dinosaur attack, not the main star in the movie but like one of the people in the control room who survives and pay for your retirement. 6.28. 9a. $29
* Performance artist Vela Phelan’s residency at the ICA continues with Sunday’s Obscurus Novena: VII. Obscurus Purgamentum. According to the description, “For fourteen days all of the trash that is produced within the walls of the ICA will be collected in black garbage bags. Phelan and (Mexican folk saint) Malverde will ascend the mountain of garbage bags and take their place upon the trash throne. They will remain there for six hours.” When you play the game of trash thrones, you either win, or you smell (like trash). (Either way you smell like trash.) 6.28. 10a. $10-15
* Find out how to get chicks (NICE) and raise them into chickens (wait, what) so you can impress women (NICE) at Tuesday’s Chicken Keeping 101 workshop at Green City Growers in Somerville. The workshop promises that egg-laying chickens are “entertaining and expressive, with big personalities — like a large Italian family that poops out breakfast.” OK I added that last part. 6.30. 6:30p. $40