Cambridge Goes Icelandic, Southie Goes Irish, and More Events This Weekend

The MIT forum How Olympic Games Transform Urban Space and What Might this Mean for Boston welcomes urban planning expert Eva Kassens-Noor to talk about case studies from the past and potential challenges and opportunities of a Boston 2024 Olympics. Kassens-Noor specializes in the impact of mega events on transit; she has consulted for the the Olympics in Athens and Vancouver, the 2018 Moscow World Cup, and my ninth birthday party that disrupted traffic patterns around the Walpole Mall Papa Gino’s because I was so popular that pretty much everyone in my class went. (6:30 p.m., FREE, all ages)

Putting the “art” back in “heart” and not pronouncing r’s in any of those words, Mayor Walsh’s ONEin3 Council and Artists for Humanity present Art With Heart, an evening of art, entertainment, and purpose. The former Trinity Church in the South End will be converted into a vivid, colorsplash 7,000 square-foot center of entertainment with a DJ and light projections, pop-up gallery of works from AFH artists, and live painting of an abstract mural of Boston. (7 p.m., $20, 21+)

Test your knowledge of books and writers and support an organization that brings the power of words to Boston youth at Literary Jeopardy with 826 Boston at Porter Square Books. It’s just a game, and it’s for charity, so the laid back Jeopardy “host” will be cool if you forget to phrase your answer as a question, right? Not likely. Anybody who steps into Alex Trebek’s shoes is imbued with a smug superiority and false sense of authority. It’s like the Stanford prison experiment if the guards conducted excruciatingly boring interviews with the prisoners in between rounds. (7 p.m., FREE, all ages)

SpeakEasy Stage Company’s new production of Big Fish is an adaptation of the 2003 Tim Burton film of the same name, which is itself an adaptation of the 1998 Daniel Wallace novel, which like all novels is adapted from the author’s real-life inability to form meaningful connections with people and specifically with women. Anyways, the SpeakEasy production opens Friday and running through April 11, including a post-show discussion Sunday with John August, writer of the play’s book and the film’s screenplay. (8 p.m., $25+, all ages)

You slave over a delicious meal for your significant other, careful to present everything just right. Three colors on the plate, make use of white space, you eat with your eyes, you eat with your eyes. You need some napkins, so let me guess, you just rip off some paper towels and toss them on the table, oh it looks like the bottom of the roll was soaking in something, whatever, what’s your other option, cloth napkins? Aren’t those for fancy people? Consider The Everyday Napkin: small, reusable cloth napkins handmade in Massachusetts. Check them out at Saturday’s launch party and pop-up shop with Blackbird Donuts at West Elm Fenway. (11 a.m., FREE, all ages)

Saturday night’s free Reykjavik Calling concert pairing local and Icelandic acts at the Middle East caps off the annual Taste of Iceland festival, and if you just mumbled to no one “Probably tastes like ice, am I right?” then that’s exactly the kind of prejudice this festival is trying to fight. This year’s show is headlined by Icelandic up-and-comers Kaleo (also a fad diet I just started where you eat kale with your bare hands like a caveman) alongside Beebee and the Bluebirds and, representing Boston, Love in Stockholm and George Knight with Pablo Palooza. Also check out the Taste of Iceland film festival, city-to-city dialogue, and special menu at Tavern Road and before you ask, yes, the menu is kaleo-friendly. (8 p.m., FREE, 18+)

It was up in the air for a while, but the annual South Boston Saint Patrick’s Day Parade is on for Sunday. But while you’re drinking your green beer and wearing your green clothes and puking your green puke, don’t forget that Saint Paddy’s in Boston is also Evacuation Day — the day George Washington and the Continental Army told the redcoats to GTFO of the city. The first Southie parade in 1901 commemorated the 125th anniversary of the British evacuation, and it seems like as good a time as any to remind your friends from out of town that Boston invented America and they should really say thank you more often. (1 p.m., FREE, all ages)

Photo credit: James Byrum/Creative Commons

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This article was provided by our content partner, The Boston Calendar.