Parties for pups, ice cream and beer fests, and more events this weekend
By: Jim Martinho - Thursday, Jul 10, 2014 - 1:23pm
(Photo credit: John Wright/Creative Commons)
The nice thing about summer is you can take normal indoor activities and move them outside and they get way better. Like theatre or movie screenings, ice cream or beer festivals, even just sitting around doing nothing is better if you’re on a park bench, because at least the pigeons will be your friends, or at least they won’t judge you for your career and lifestyle choices, and if they do, screw them, the never-ending bread party stops right here, pal.
* Apollinaire Theatre Company’s 11th season of free bilingual performances in Chelsea’s Mary O’Malley Park presents “¡Bocón!” by Lisa Loomer. The story of 12-year-old Miguel who flees an repressive Central American military regime and begins a metaphorical journey to Los Angeles, the play is written to be understood in both English and Spanish. Sort of like when you watch the World Cup on Univision, except that only works because you have a very limited understanding of what’s happening in soccer, which is usually nothing anyways. This play is better than soccer. 7.10. 7:30p. FREE
* To paraphrase Kermit the Frog: Why are there so many avant-garde mixed media performance art exhibitions about rainbows? Jeff Huckleberry’s Things About Rainbows, an evolving performance art series developed based on the nature of rainbows, opens with a reception and performance Friday at the Boston Center of the Arts. Huckleberry’s previous works have employed paint, lumber, power tools, rubbing alcohol, and ambient soundscapes, although to be fair ambient soundscapes are to performance art what power chords are to rock music. 7.10. 6p. FREE
* The best part about the Costume Party for Animals fundraiser at Workbar in Cambridge is you get to dress up like the animals you’re benefiting, which doesn’t work out so well if you’re raising funds for, say, Africa. Dance to Keytar Bear’s fuzzy, funky grooves, get your face painted by “practically professional face painters” and enter to win costume contests for best cat, best dog, best fictional animal, and best animal meme — all to benefit animals that are just saying, “I can haz nourishing and cruelty-free home?” 7.11. 8p. $20
* The Martha’s Vineyard International Film Festival teams up with the Liberty Hotel for a free screening in the hotel courtyard, plus there’s free popcorn so you’ve already saved about $27 over seeing a real movie in a theater. Shot entirely on MV — that’s Martha’s Vineyard if you’ve never been and don’t have the bumper sticker, because why even go somewhere if your car can’t brag about it? — “Jimmy Was a Carpenter” is a romantic thriller about a man who discovers he can bring his dead girlfriend back to life. The screening will be preceded by live music from Rob Myers, one of the film’s stars. 7.11. 8p. FREE
* There’s a decent chance you only know how to read this because of “Sesame Street” and “Reading Rainbow,” programs that were made possible by viewers like you, yeah right, just like you, except with unlimited allowance money to buy all the Fun Dip and Fruit Stripe Gum they want and still donate to their local PBS affiliates. Now you’re a grown-ass (wo)man with a few bucks to spare, so do your part and stop by the WGBH studios in Brighton for Saturday’s Ice Cream FunFest (OMG brainfreeze!!!) or Craft Beer Festival (OMG brain cells dying). 7.12. 10a/7p. $10/$40-50
* You ever get really into a song and just start dancing, then everyone looks at you weird because it’s in your headphones and they can’t hear it, and also the song is Robyn’s “Dancing On My Own” and you laugh but, again, no one can hear it and the irony is lost on them? Now you can roam the streets of Boston with a whole group of people rocking out to a synced-up stream in your earbuds at the Global Floating Dance Party, and if you’re off-beat you can just blame your crappy cell service. Sprint was a bad choice. 7.12. 8:30p. FREE
* America is basically France at this point, with gourmet donuts and craft beer subbing in for croissants and fine wine, so party Francophone-style at Harvard Square’s Bastille Day celebration. Holyoke Street will close down for live music, techno DJs, a beer garden, and French delicacies, and the festivities kick off with a World Cup finals viewing party, so if Germany wins you can look at your friends and say quelle dommage! and they’ll laugh because they took French in school, too, everyone did because you got to go to Quebec in eighth grade. 7.13. 3p. FREE
* The Red Sox season might be a disaster, but we can always get excited about future prospects, sort of like how you’re single but you can always swipe through Tinder and tell yourself it won’t always be like this. Check out some of the stars of the organization’s deep farm system at the annual Futures at Fenway game, where some sections of the park will even be open to fans with dogs. Just in case your pup wants to take a literal shit in the stands to match this figurative shit of a season. Two weeks until Pats training camp! 7.13. 3:30p. $15