Editor’s note: You’ll notice a more streamlined set of listings this week. Now that we have a searchable events calendar we’re picking a few highlights from each day. Because scrolling for pages is a bore.
Thursday, Jan. 8
YWCA Cambridge collab beer launch 5 to 10 p.m. at Lamplighter Brewing, 284 Broadway, The Port, Cambridge. Free. This collaboration with Lamplighter Brewing and YWCA Cambridge highlights Two for Tea, a golden ale brewed with chamomile and lemon. Games and food available for purchase from Controne.
Honest 2 Betsy and her Bawdy Broads variety show at 8 p.m. at Club Passim, 47 Palmer St., Harvard Square, Cambridge. $28 to $30. Blends comedy, music, ventriloquism and dance channeling the spirit of old-school vaudeville with a modern twist.
Friday, Jan. 9
Afro-Caribbean and Latin Night from 6:30 to 9 p.m. at Lou’s, 13 Brattle St., Cambridge. No cover charge. Features singer-songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist Manolo Mairena, a Costa Rican artist based in Boston who has worked with Grammy winners Chucho Valdés, Gonzalo Grau, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Alex Alvear, Fausto Cuevas and Eguie Castrillo.
Construction Party featuring Dave Rempis at 7 p.m. at Lilypad, 1353 Cambridge St., Inman Square, Cambridge. $15 to $20. Saxophonist Rempis returns to the Cambridge stage alongside long-standing Boston-based musicians Luther Gray, Forbes Graham, Pandelis Karayorgis and Nate McBride.
Kate McGovern and the Cambridge Young Authors Squad at 7 p.m. at Porter Square Books, 1815 Massachusetts Ave., Porter Square, Cambridge. $19 with book. McGovern discusses her new novel “Maple for the People,” the follow-up to “Welcome Back, Maple Mehta-Cohen” with a local group of 5th and 6th grade writers.
Saturday, Jan. 10
“Wonder” theater at 2 p.m. at Loeb Drama Center, 64 Brattle St., Harvard Square, Cambridge (continuing through Feb. 8). $35 to $142. An American Repertory Theater presentation from the novel by R.J. Palacio and the 2017 film: Auggie Pullman, a kid with facial deformities, has been homeschooled his entire life. He must navigate a world filled with kindness and cruelty when his family decides it’s time for him to start going to school.
“Amazigh New Year” festival of the Amazigh culture from 5 to 10 p.m. at Arts at the Armory, 191 Highland Ave., Somerville. $35 (kids free). An evening of live music, folk dancing, food, presentations and activities surrounding the heritage, language and art of peoples native to North Africa. Sponsored by the Boston-based Amazigh American Network Organization.
Rock Out for Safe Homes at 6:30 p.m. at Somerville Theatre’s Crystal Ballroom, 55 Davis Square. $33. This benefit concert supports RESPOND, Inc., New England’s first domestic violence agency dedicated to partnering with individuals, families and communities to end domestic violence through prevention, intervention and direct services.
Sunday, Jan. 11
Catherine Bowness and Alex Rubin perform from 1 to 3 p.m. at An Sibin, 1193 Cambridge St., Cambridge. Free. Every Sunday Catherine Bowness and Alex Rubin host this “bluegrass brunch” featuring local musicians.
John Wayne’s Dream at 2:30 p.m. at Aeronaut Brewing, 14 Tyler St., near Union Square, Somerville. Free. Weaving harmonies and instrumentals, the band brings to life old music including traditional country, folk and blues, usually found only on vintage recordings.
Debussy, Fauré and Messiaen from 3 to 5 p.m. at Sanders Theatre, 45 Quincy St., near Harvard Square, Cambridge. $9 to $72. Musicians from the Boston Chamber Music Society perform Claude Debussy’s Première Rhapsodie for Clarinet and Piano (1910); Gabriel Fauré’s Piano Quartet in G minor, Op. 45 (1886); and Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time (1940).
Monday, Jan. 12
Kamilah Cole on an “An Arcane Inheritance” at 7 p.m. at Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Ave., Harvard Square, Cambridge. Free. In this fantasy novel, Ellory Morgan is determined to prove that she belongs at Warren University, an elite school whose history is deeply linked to occult rumors and dark secrets. As she begins her freshman year, she can’t escape that feeling she’s been here before. Author Karen Winn joins.
Irish Session with Eamonn Sefton and friends from 7 to 10 p.m. at McCarthy’s, 1920 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge. Free. The singer-songwriter was raised on traditional music from Ireland, Scotland and Cape Breton. Sefton established himself as one of the top fretted instrument players in the American Celtic music scene.
The Fringe performs at 10 p.m. at Lilypad, 1353 Cambridge St., Inman Square, Cambridge. $15. Remaining members of The Fringe (formed in 1971), tenor-saxophonist George Garzone and bassist John Lockwood perform contemporary jazz.
Tuesday, Jan. 13
Book signing: Carl Radke, author of “Cake Eater” at noon at Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Ave., Harvard Square, Cambridge. Free, or $32 with book. The reality TV star of Bravo’s “Summer House” shares his journey to sobriety in this memoir.
Gallery Talk: Drawing Materials and Techniques in “Sketch, Shade, Smudge: Drawing from Gray to Black” from 12:30 to 1 p.m. at the Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., near Harvard Square, Cambridge. Free. A curatorial assistant discusses the drawing materials and techniques seen in works in this special exhibition.
Point01 Percent contemporary series from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. at Lilypad, 1353 Cambridge St., Inman Square, Cambridge. $15. A cross-pollination of area musical improvisers. At 7:30 p.m., Gabe Boyarin (guitar), Phillip Rawlinson (violin), Anthony Coleman (piano) and Noah Mark (drums). At 8:30 p.m., Pandelis Karayorgis (piano), Allan Chase (saxophone) and Luther Gray (drums).
Wednesday, Jan. 14
Gallery Talk: Catching the Tooth and Sketching a Shape from 12:30 to 1 p.m. at the Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., near Harvard Square, Cambridge. Free. Curatorial research associate Susan Anderson discusses how artists working at the turn of the 20th century used dry media as a means towards abstraction.
“The Princess Bride” screening at 3:45 and 8:15 p.m. at Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St., Harvard Square, Cambridge. $13. Watch this funny romantic adventure film about gallant suitors and helpful giants featuring classic lines such as “As you wish” and “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”
51st Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day Lecture with Dr. Brandon M. Terry from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at Cambridge Main Library, 449 Broadway, Mid-Cambridge. Free, but register. The John L. Loeb associate professor of the social sciences at Harvard University and co-director of the Institute on Policing, Incarceration and Public Safety at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research is the author of “Shattered Dreams, Infinite Hope: A Tragic Vision of the Civil Rights Movement.”
Thursday, Jan. 15
Fresh Pond Nature Walk from 10:15 to 11:30 a.m., meeting at the courtyard of Cambridge Public Library Collins Branch, 64 Aberdeen Ave., West Cambridge. Free, but register. During this relaxing walk of Fresh Pond, ranger Amanda Garms shares insights about what’s growing, changing and blooming in the neighborhood. The walk is on uneven terrain, down hills and over roots, not on a paved path.
Max Bazerman goes “Inside an Academic Scandal: A Story of Fraud and Betrayal” at 7 p.m. at Porter Square Books, 1815 Massachusetts Ave., Porter Square, Cambridge. $33 with book. In 2012 Bazerman, along with four coauthors, published a paper showing that promising to tell the truth by signing your name before filling out a form produced greater honesty than signing afterward. In 2021, it was discovered that two of the experiments in the paper were fraudulent. Harvard’s Todd Rogers joins.
Boston Celtic Music Festival from 7 to 9 p.m. (and continuing through Jan. 18). $25 to $35. This twice-annual homegrown celebration marks its 23rd anniversary of showcasing Greater Boston’s tradition of music, song and dance from Irish, Scottish, Cape Breton, Quebecois and other Celtic communities. The event includes musicians, workshops and participatory musical sessions and dances over the course of a weekend at Club Passim, 47 Palmer St., Harvard Square, Cambridge; Somerville Theatre’s Crystal Ballroom, 55 Davis Square; The Burren, 247 Elm St., Davis Square, Somerville; and Arts at the Armory, 191 Highland Ave., Spring Hill, Somerville.
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