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. 22
The First President and the First People: Washington in the Native Northeast from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at Cambridge Main Library, 449 Broadway, Mid-Cambridge. RSVP. To mark the 250th anniversaries of the American Revolution and the founding of the United States, this program traces how diplomacy, collaboration and conflict shaped the early republic through Washington’s relationships with Native Americans. Features Colin Gordon Calloway, author of “The Indian World of George Washington: The First President, the First Americans, and the Birth of the Nation” and Kabl Wilkerson, enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and doctoral candidate in the History Department at Harvard University.
J.S. Ondara performs at 8 p.m. at Warehouse XI, 11 Sanborn Court, Union Square, Somerville. $27. The Grammy Award-nominated Kenyan and American singer-songwriter brings his “Jet Stone Conspiracy” tour to the Somerville stage featuring his folk and Americana harmonies.
Friday, Jan. 23
Speakeasy Night from 7 p.m. to midnight at Lamplighter Brewing, 284 Broadway, The Port, Cambridge. Free, but RSVP. This Prohibition-style speakeasy bash is straight from the 1920s. Dress in your best flapper attire and “Great Gatsby” glamour and you may even get a prize for best dressed.
Wyrd presents “Gladiators” at 7 to 9:30 p.m. at the cafe at Arts at the Armory, 191 Highland Ave., Somerville. $10. A stand-up comedy open mic competition where audience members vote when to kick the comedians off stage.
Saturday, Jan. 24
Winter Family Fun Day from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at Peabody School gym, 70 Rindge Ave., North Cambridge. Free. Open to Cambridge families with children ages 8 and younger. Enjoy activities including family crafts, face painting, giant basketball, games, an infant area and a fun performance. Every child will receive a free book.
Meat the Need: A Meat Raffle from 5 to 7 p.m. at Aeronaut Brewing, 14 Tyler St., near Union Square in Ward 2, Somerville. Free, but register. Raffling off five specially curated baskets from Savenor’s Butcher Shop to benefit the Elizabeth Peabody House.
Sunday, Jan. 25
Revolutions per Minute Festival at 2 p.m. at Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St., Harvard Square, Cambridge. $13. Dedicated to short-form poetic experimental film, essay film, animation, documentary, video and audiovisual performance, this event highlights 11 films by Raymond Rea from 1985 to 2025, showcasing Rea’s signature LoFi aesthetic and theatrical undertones.
Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras presents Hector Berlioz’s Les Troyens à Carthage at 3 p.m. at Sanders Theatre, 45 Quincy St., near Harvard Square, Cambridge. $45 to $75. Conducted by Federico Cortese and running three hours, this libretto was written by Berlioz from Virgil’s epic poem “The Aeneid,” telling the story of the Trojan hero Aeneas, who travels to Italy to become the ancestor of the Romans.
Monday, Jan. 26
Harvey C. Mansfield reads from “The Rise and Fall of Rational Control” from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at Cambridge Main Library, 449 Broadway, Mid-Cambridge. Free. The research professor of government at Harvard University and recipient of the National Humanities Medal discusses his interpretation of centuries of intellectual revolutions from Machiavelli to Nietzsche and where we go from here. Harvard’s Eric Nelson joins.
Sustaining Community: A Climate Change Book Group from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at Cambridge Main Library, Richard C. Rossi Room, 449 Broadway, Mid-Cambridge. Free, but register. This month’s title: “Human Nature: Nine ways to feel about our changing planet” by Kate Marvel.
Tuesday, Jan. 27
The Beasts of Burren Rolling Stones Tribute in Honor of Charles Daniels at 7 p.m. at The Burren, 247 Elm St., Davis Square, Somerville. $10 to $50 donation. Photographer Charles Daniels (1942-2024) lived and worked at the center of the Boston, Massachusetts, music scene from the 1960s forward. As emcee of the seminal rock club, the Boston Tea Party, and on-air talent at WBCN, he shot the Rolling Stones, the Faces, Aerosmith, and many more. Today, the Charles Daniels Foundation continues the work of processing, preserving and showcasing Charles’ voluminous body of work.
Broadway Trivia night from 7 to 9:30 p.m. at Lamplighter Brewing, 284 Broadway, The Port, Cambridge. Free and 21-plus. This weekly game for teams of two to six people in categories ranging from history and politics to sports and movies to pop culture and music has a different flavor worth sampling. The top three teams get gift cards usable at Lamplighter or Pepita coffee.
Wednesday, Jan. 28
Midday Music & Soup: Roots Alley Collective from 12:15 to 1 p.m. at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Welcome Center, 292 Main St., Kendall Square, Cambridge. Free. This authentic Caribbean band performs reggae aimed at uplifting, preserving and spreading the music and culture of the Caribbean diaspora. While you listen, enjoy a hot cup of soup from Souper Roll Up Café.
The Norton Lectures with Steve McQueen: “Occupied City” at 6 p.m. at Sanders Theatre, 45 Quincy St., near Harvard Square, Cambridge. Free, but RSVP. The artist and director of “12 Years a Slave” (2013), a winner of Golden Globes, Oscars and Baftas, gives six lectures this year. “Occupied City” explores the past and the present of Amsterdam. Based on Bianca Stigter’s “Atlas of an Occupied City – Amsterdam 1940-1945,” McQueen’s film observes 130 locations in present-day Amsterdam and pairs them with stories about persecution, collaboration and resistance that took place there under the Nazi rule of the Dutch capital. The next lecture is March 3.
Thursday, Jan. 29
ArtThursdays: Puzzle Party from 5 to 9 p.m. at Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford St., in the Baldwin neighborhood near Harvard Square, Cambridge. Free and 18-plus. For one night only, the museum offers an exclusive certificate in CRYPTOzoology. Sea monsters, unicorns, sasquatches — creatures long dismissed as “pseudoscience” — will finally be studied. Be among the first to “apply” for this prestigious new program by tackling a series of playful, museum-based puzzles that will test your powers of deduction and close looking. Along the way you’ll craft a short application “essay” to prove you’ve got what it takes to be a certified cryptozoologist.
Documentary screening: “The Next Dream” from 6 to 8 p.m. at Cambridge Main Library, 449 Broadway, Mid-Cambridge. Free, but RSVP. This independent documentary tells the story about more than 1 million Temporary Protected Status families across the U.S. who are at risk of deportation and family separation.
A stronger
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Both my partner and I strongly disprefer this abbreviated format and do not think the current calendar is a good substitute. To browse the same number of events, it actually requires more scrolling for less information – at least on mobile.
Having a wider selection of events with a chunk of easily accessible information made it possible to find events to attend for the week on one page – and while the new system provides a longer list, that list is not easily perused due to the layout of the table and the low information density on mobile.
Agree! I much prefer the old format and did not find it a bore at all. I used to regularly recommend people look here for events but no longer do with this new format.