Music Hometown keytar heroes Freezepop have returned from touring the world (okay, Florida, and the Rust Belt) to once again rock Cambridge, with the help of the The Information, The Main Drag, and Michael Hensley. Middle East Downstairs, 8 pm, 18+, $14. Beer Harpoon will hold its St. Patrick's Festival at the brewery on 306 Northern Avenue. Wear galoshes because the floor may well be slick with beer. Harpoon Brewery, 5:30 to 11:00 pm,......

Books Sarah Boxer bravely prowled through the blogosphere to share its treasures with us in Ultimate Blogs. Of course, Go Fug Yourself makes the list. Brattle Theatre (via Harvard Book Store), 6:00 pm, $5. Edit: Event has been moved to Harvard Book Store --If you've been reading Bostonist for a while, you might know how we feel about the potential of wind power. A while ago, we read this barnburner of a book about......

Music and Cryptozoology A set of local organizations--Cloud City (aka Ben Sisto), The Footlight Club, and the Milky Way--are throwing a fund-raiser for 826 Boston. In a match made in heaven, the bookish Harry & the Potters will be the main event, and the openers will be Pants Yell! If you're nice, Bigfoot might show up in the shadows. Be observant. The Footlight Club, 7A Eliot Street, Jamaica Plain, 5:30 doors, 6:30 show, $12.......

Music Annie Clark went to Berklee, paid her indie-cred dues in Sufjan Stevens' touring band and the Polyphonic Spree, and named her solo project St. Vincent after a church where which she fell in love and the hospital where Dylan Thomas died. Her songs are chamber pop clad in synthesizers and charm. Middle East Downstairs, 8 pm, 18+, $12. Carnal Carnival Walter Sickert & the Army of Broken Toys know how to throw a......

Short Cartoons You saw the nominees for the Live Action Short Film Academy Award last night; come back to the ICA for the contenders in the animated category. Formats include traditional 2D animation, CGI, and claymation. Check out the John Lennon interview film "I Met the Walrus." Institute of Contemporary Art, 100 Northern Avenue, South Boston, 7:00pm. $7/$9. Recover Heal a broken heart with laughter. Ben Karlin has assembled a collection of raucous breakup......

Adrian Tomine, 6pm ($5) Killer of Sheep, 8pm ($12, $10 Brattle members) Brattle Theatre Special $15 ticket gets you into both events! Perhaps best known for his graphic series Optic Nerve, some of which was collected in the book Summer Blonde, artist Adrian Tomine recently came out with a full-length graphic novel called Shortcomings--and even more recently drew a rad cover for the New Yorker (pictured right). The longer novel format gave Tomine more room......

Books --Charles Bock's Beautiful Children isn't as delicate as it sounds. A couple reels after their child vanishes in the Las Vegas desert--only it's so, so much more than that, and it's received a flood of attention. The Globe thought Bock threw too much into his debut, but everyone seems to agree that he's ambitious. Brookline Booksmith, 7:00 pm, free. Speaking of free, he's letting you download the book without dropping a single dime.......

Daft Punk's Electroma Gus Van Sant, Isaac Asimov, and a French-loving raver walk into the desert... Not a joke, but the vibe of Daft Punk's art-house film debut that debuted at Cannes in '06. In what could either be called a long-form music video or a 74-minute silent movie, it's a beautifully-filmed story that touches on some classic human themes, but in a really twisted way starring robots. (It better have been filmed beautifully......

This past Monday French avant garde novelist and filmmaker Alain Robbe-Grillet died at the age of 85. Robbe-Grillet is regarded as the theorist behind the "new novel", which rejects conventional storytelling techniques for surface narratives that focus on objects and details rather than the world at large. Truly, he could suck a story out of an electric shaver like no other. While a favorite name to drop in the literary lounge, Robbe-Grillet is best known......

Art Somerville's Nave Gallery has brought us thoughtful installations before, but their new "Ghost Town" sounds positively compelling. Artists imagine our earth in a process of transformation, with cities growing and shrinking, populations moving, people interacting with nature, and everything cycling both naturally and unnaturally toward growth, decay, and chaos. Might sound like a bunch of hippie nonsense, but we think it makes for some appealing art. "Ghost Town" runs through March 21 at......

Jazzy Movies Avant garde filmmaker Robert Fenz and free music composer and multi-instrumentalist Wadada Leo Smith team up tonight at the Harvard Film Archive to "create a 'space' that grows out of the combination of disciplines, with neither sound nor image subjugated." Fenz screens his film Meditations on Revolution and Smith provides live improvisational accompaniment. Harvard Film Archive, Carpenter Center, 24 Quincy St., Cambridge, 7:00pm. $10. (RS) Rabbits Bored on President's Day? Get in......

Books --Self-described philosopher-comedians Tom Cathcart and Daniel Klein discuss Aristotle and an Aardvark Go to Washington. Imagine Jon Stewart after he stops shouting "Whaaaa??" takes some time off for a philosophy PhD, and returns to TV. Brookline Booksmith, 7:00 pm, free. --Find out why Drew Gilpin Faust is the president of Harvard, and you're not. Faust will discuss her book This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War at the Harvard Coop......

The cold weather is no excuse for you not to get out! Human Dogsledding No kidding. The 8th annual National Human Dog Sled Competition will start today in Lowell. You can learn more about other Lowell Winterfest events, which sound like fun. However, for Bostonist, it is all about the human dogsledding--and teams usually wear costumes. Challenger rounds will be tonight at 6:45 and 10:00 pm, and championship rounds will be tomorrow at 3:30 and......

Great Romances III Friday, Feb 8 -- Thursday, Feb 14, various times Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street, Cambridge More details Somebody at the Brattle Theatre must have a heart made of sap. The cinema is hosting not one, not two, but six days of romantic films leading up to Valentine's Day. You cannot deal with that much loving. We cannot. So, Bostonist has assembled a quick guide to help you choose the ideal screening for......

Music Few acts in hip-hop's young guard come more correct than Berkeley, CA crew The Pack. Roiling, minimalist beats, raps about partying and sneakers, and a whispered menace that keeps you off guard: it's like degree zero of the art form. Sounds great on record (or Myspace), but can they rock an audience? Harper's Ferry, 158 Brighton Ave., Allston, 7:00 pm, $12/$14. Could your music options for tonight be any different? "Lady rapper" Leslie......

Movies Catch a sneak preview of In Bruges, starring Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson. The movie, which screened at Sundance, follows two hit men who are forced to vacation in the tourist hotspot. CNN dared to call the film "Tarantino-esque." Whether or not "Tarantino-esque" fits, the trailer is full of some sharp one-liners. Director Martin McDonagh will be there. Brattle Theatre, 7:00 pm. Doors open at 6:00, and getting there early is recommended. Check out......

Meet the Spartans, which is now at 3% on Rotten Tomatoes after starting off in the negative, is enjoying the number-one position at the box office this week. Meanwhile, Sylvester Stallone's comeback vehicle of-sorts, Rambo, wound up in second place. Seriously, Diedrich Bader is cool, but you're way better off watching him as a "Dog the Bounty Hunter" rip-off during this season's "Reno 911." At least Mark Feeney at the Globe found something to like......

--Dr. Judah Folkman, who found a new way of fighting cancer by cutting off blood supply to tumors, died yesterday. [Boston Globe] --After one meeting ended unsuccessfully, the Cambridge City Council decided that Denise Simmons would be mayor. [Cambridge Chronicle] --The judge in a Florida case involving former FBI agent/Friend-of-Whitey-Bulger John J. Connolly has recused herself. [Boston Herald] --Coyote ugly: An injured coyote was spotted and rounded up last night in the North End.......

National Treasure: Book of Secrets refuses to go away. It topped the box office for another week. And very few moviegoers can resist a cheap horror flick like One Missed Call, which came in at number five. The movie is largely an excuse for critics to sharpen their fangs and break out some stunning insults. Wesley Morris called it, "part do-it-yourself lobotomy kit, part-David Cronenberg for the lobotomized, part anti-mobile propaganda." Ed Burns is in......

Movies Two-Lane Blacktop is one of the best underground movies you've probably never seen. Even though the 1971 movie about drag racers looks like a star vehicle for "Sweet Baby James" Taylor, the images and general restless atmosphere make it seem more like Godard than anything else. Throw in a performance by another one of Hollywoods unsung heroes, Warren Oates, and a haunting final scene, and you have a classic. Showtimes from the Brattle Theatre.......

Movies Strap yourselves in for the Brattle Theatre's very first Python-a-Thon. In honor of the arrival of Spamalot, they'll show And Now for Something Completely Different, Monty Python's Life of Brian, Monty Python and the Holy Grail (duh), and Monty Python and the Meaning of Life. Showtimes from the Brattle Theatre. Theater What happened when Werner Heisenberg and Niels Bohr met to discuss the atom bomb? Michael Frayn imagines it in Copenhagen. Loeb Drama Center.......

Nicolas Cage mopped up the competition this weekend with the National Treasure sequel, which looked a lot like a remake of the first one. It's basically expensive kids' movie stuff. However, a friend of ours who paid to see it pointed out that those who like the ladies will see a lot of Diane Kruger in skimpy, damp clothes. Julia Roberts is probably wishing she could beat a chipmunk with her Oscar right about now.......

I Am Legend raked in the money, as expected. The public loves Will Smith, they love special effects, they love cute dogs, and I Am Legend gave audiences what they wanted. Peter Keough at the Phoenix went so far as to say that the dog in I Am Legend was his "favorite animal character of the year." As a result, the movie made an obscene $76.5 million on its opening weekend. Believe it or not,......

Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory in Smell-O-Vision Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street, Cambridge Thursday, December 13, 7:30 More information If you missed the outdoor screening of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory in Smell-O-Vision at Union Square this summer, you have the opportunity to miss it again. The indoor debut of the event is sold out. Last July, a group of artists led by Megan Dickerson and funded by the Somerville Arts Council, presented......

How did The Golden Compass, Juno, and Atonement do critically and commercially? Of Compass and its controversy, the Dig's David Wildman said, "So screw the religious nuts, there's no reason not to see this fun little flick." James Verniere at the Herald disagreed, finding it a "long and often tedious slog." Unless you're a sci-fi fan or want to stick it to The Man, you might want to stay away. The movie opened at Number......

A Tribute to Ingmar Bergman Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street, Cambridge Friday, December 7-Wednesday, December 12 Tickets and more information Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, who died in July, made too many movies to fit neatly into a polite retrospective. With that in mind, be grateful that the Brattle Theatre has arranged its Bergman tribute around a tidy theme -- films starring Liv Ullmann -- that demonstrates the broad range of Bergman's mastery. (The Harvard Film......

Blue Velvet and The Twin Peaks Pilot Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street, Cambridge Monday, December 3 Tickets and showtimes It's not on any wall calendars, but December 3rd is David Lynch Day in Cambridge, at least according to the Brattle Theatre. Last year, Lynch debuted Inland Empire at the Brattle, and the Cambridge city council honored the director by giving him his own day. This year, the Brattle will celebrate by offering theatergoers a pair......

Authorial Intent is Bostonist's wrap-up of local readings. All events are free unless otherwise noted. Wednesday, November 28 Helen Vendler, Our Secret Discipline: Yeats and the Lyric Form, Sacker Museum (via Harvard Book Store), 6:00 pm. More info. Vendler, the closest reader of all close readers, so says the New York Times, shines her spotlight on William Butler Yeats. Thursday, November 29 David Hosp, Innocence, 7:30 pm, Charlestown Branch Library Hosp will be reading from......

Art House Silent Art Auction Thursday, November 29, 7:00 pm Brattle Theatre, Cambridge, $15 More info The Brattle Theatre is holding its fourth-annual silent art auction so you can do some good for local culture and make your apartment less ugly. Bids start at $35, which is pretty cheap for getting your foot in the door as an art collector. The Brattle has previewed some of the works so you can glance at them ahead......

A Tribute to David Halberstam Tuesday, November 27, 7:00 pm Brattle Theatre (via Harvard Book Store and Powell's Books), $10 More info. With the holiday, this week wasn't going to have heaps of readings, but a big one is taking place on Tuesday as great minds gather to discuss the work of the late journalist David Halberstam. Out of the Book, a documentary series sponsored by Powell's Books that follows authors, has turned its gaze......