Colonial Rum, Craft Beer Concerts, and More Boston Events This Week

Fenway’s Mei Mei Restaurant hosts its first Pizza Lab combining pizza and Chinese food, two staples in the diet of red-blooded Americans everywhere who can’t cook or are too lazy/drunk to cook. The menu features pizzas with such toppings as Peking smoked chicken, sweet and sour pork, cranberry miso marinara, and hey you’re drooling a little bit there nevermind too late it’s frozen to your face, OK it’s just part of your face now, enjoy your gross saliva goatee until May. The Pizza Lab has already been postponed once, so the website promises it’s happening tonight “rain or shine.” LOL rain, what even is that. (5 p.m., free admission/pay for food, all ages)

Brandy Burre had a recurring role on HBO’s The Wire when she gave up her career to start a family. When she decides to reclaim her life as an actor, the domestic world she’s carefully created crumbles around her. Robert Greene’s documentary Actress explores what it means to be a middle-aged working actress today, while inviting us to question the way we create our own narratives and how we are all really actors and actresses in our own daily lives. Like when someone asks how you doing and you smile and say “Great!” when in reality you’re not great, you’re not even good, you stubbed your toe this morning and burnt your toast and your stupid iPhone can’t hold a charge anymore and you’re starting to think you might actually be dead inside. The DocYard presents a screening of the film followed by a Q&A with Greene and Burre tonight at the Brattle Theatre. (7 p.m., $9-11, all ages)

Anybody can stop by a gas station and pick up some cheap-shit box of chocolates to dismissively toss in front of your partner as you mumble “Happy Valentine’s or whatever” and add another item to the long list of minor maladies that contributed to the eventual death of your once vibrant and loving relationship. Instead, stop by Tuesday’s wine tasting and chocolate making workshop at Trident Books, where you’ll learn to make your own candies and show that you’re the kind of person who appreciates the utterly random sequence of events in this cosmic joke we call life that resulted in the presence of another human being who will happily lay in bed with you while you both stare at your phones. (7 p.m., $5, 21+)

The February edition of Weirdo Records’ monthly It Just Got Weirdo night pays tribute to jazz’s legendary Sun Ra, the greatest peace-loving, time-defying, ancient Egypt-obsessed, experimental jazz bandleader from the planet Saturn of all time, and if he’s like the Saturnians I know he’s probably laughing at all of us flipping out about Earth winter, like hello, have you seen a map of the solar system? Compared to Saturn we’re basically Florida. The lineup includes comedy from Pamela Ross, James Huessy, Kenice Mobley, Rick Canavan, and Shaun Bedgood; poetry by Adam Stone; and special musical guests Strobe & Essex. (8:30 p.m., FREE, all ages)

Harvard Innovation Lab welcomes 12-year NBA veteran Baron Davis, who will talk about his film The Drew: No Excuse, Just Produce, a story of family, community, and the lessons we learn through basketball. “No excuse, just produce” is also my mantra for avoiding the junk food aisle at the supermarket in favor of fruits and vegetables. The event is free to attend, but reserve your tickets in advance. (6 p.m., FREE, all ages)

I was so wrapped up in last Sunday’s Super Bowl that my brain wasn’t capable of creating new memories at the time, so I just caught Budweiser’s so-dumb-it’s-funny “craft beer is for wusses” commercial. If you’re the type of bearded commie hipster who thinks beer should actually taste good, stop by Somerville’s Aeronaut Brewing Company for the quarterly Original Gravity concert series pairing local beers with music from a local composer. The February edition features Transient Canvas, a Boston-based duo of Amy Advocat on clarinet and Matt Sharock on marimba. “Original gravity” is a brewing term, which I know because I just home-brewed my first batch. I’ll let you know how it is/if you don’t hear from me next week it’s because I went blind. (6 p.m., $15, 21+)

One of the few rules of this space is whenever there’s an opportunity to get drunk in one of Boston’s historic buildings, I’m going to let you know about it. Dive into colonial history at the Old North Church’s Sweets & Spirits: Colonial-style Chocolate and Rum night, where you’ll learn to make your own chocolate bark and sip hot chocolate spiked with Privateer Rum. If you have to use the restroom, you can climb up to the church tower and use the old one lantern/two lantern system to let people know how long you’re going to be in there. (6 p.m., $25, 21+)

Photo credit: Maynard and Glinda/Creative Commons

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