Funky Smells

-- The Common gets a whole lot greener today during MassCann's Freedom Rally, a pot festival. With Proposition 2 on the Mass. ballot, expect more politics this year than your standard complement of libertarians and Ron Paulistas. Word on the street: Something special happens a little after quarter past four. Boston Common, 12 noon. Free.

Staples

-- Before young people were connected by a series of tubes, they communicated using photocopiers, staplers, marginal graphic design skills, and a primitive, ground-based mail system. Zines might have taught a young Bostonist that Keith Morris was the vocalist for Black Flag and the Circle Jerks, or how to make a pipe bomb, but their cultural moment may have passed. The Papercut Zine Library, organizers of the Boston Zine Fair, beg to disagree. Art Institute of Boston, 601 Newbury St., 10 a.m. (through Sunday). Free.

Skillz

-- Like zines (see above), country fairs were once a common way to meet your neighbors. Truth Serum's Urban Country Fair tries to recreate that atmosphere of neighborliness with skill shares (learn fermentation!), live music, and nonsense. One more entry like this, and you'd think that Happenings were a Dentyne ad. Union Square, Somerville, 3 p.m. Free.

Walking

-- You might think that Art Deco was a New York thing, but the movement was international and there's plenty of it in Boston. The Art Deco Society of Boston hosts a series of walking tours of downtown to give you a new perspective on the city's skyline. Leaves from City Hall Plaza, 11 a.m. (also September 27) $20.

Dancing Hipsters

-- Santogold, the toast of New York's Lower East Side, is a little bit dub, a little bit electro. Paradise Rock Club, 967 Comm. Ave., 9 p.m. $22.

-- If you haven't noticed the recent temperature drop, Bostonist envies the thermal bubble you apparently inhabit. Heat up tonight on the river; it's the final 2008 installment of Dancing on the Charles. Expect the usual barbecue, booze, jams, and monster sound system. American Legion Marsh Post #442, Charles River, Cambridge, 7 p.m. $10.