Free Museum Days, Reading Series, and More Events This Week in Boston

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is the only one of the “big three” museums in Boston without a weekly free/by donation admission day, but it’s free any day of the year for anyone named Isabella. So all you Isabellas out there can disregard this, but everyone else should check out the annual Frank Hatch Free Day, named after the longtime museum trustee and community arts advocate. I don’t really support the arts as much as a I should, but I do support my local drinking establishment, so someday you could enjoy Free Beer Day in my memory. (11 a.m., FREE, all ages)

Harvard Book Store welcomes Randall Munroe, creator of the brilliant webcomic xkcd to the Brattle Theatre to talk about his new book, “What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions.” It sounds sort of like “Mythbusters” in book form, complemented by signature xkcd comics, which you can always count on for a laugh and to take me down a peg whenever I start to think I’m pretty darn intelligent because I’ve seen a lot of movies and can even throw out the occasional highbrow literary reference. I am not smart. Scientists are smart. (6 p.m., $26 (includes book), all ages)

I have a hunch that Jamaica Plain remains mostly unexplored territory for most of the students back in town this week, so luckily the Bella Luna kicks off its Fall Music Series of free, all-ages shows from local bands. Wednesday’s show features The Van Burens, so in lieu of a cover charge, guests will need to flash their secret sign by holding up eight fingers. The Van Buren boys never bother their own kind. (6 p.m., FREE, all ages)

Seasonal Regression presents Summer Fling at Oberon in Cambridge, featuring local writers and comedians revealing the stories behind their hottest, most unforgettable summer flings, accompanied by a live musical score from avant-garde drag ensemble Pleasure Drone. Story subjects range from hot-bod construction workers to an actual arsonist, probably someone who heard the Kings of Leon song “Sex on Fire” and who also happened to be tragically unfamiliar with the concept of metaphor. (7:30 p.m., $10-12, 21+)

Who doesn’t love Jeff Bridges? The guy’s a six-time Oscar nominee but still embraces the fact that to most of us he’ll always be The Dude first and foremost. Bridges stops by the Wilbur Theatre in support of his T-Bone Burnett-produced album “Natural,” and even the name of his backing band is a sly “Lebowski” reference. So when the lights go down before he takes the stage, you should probably turn to your friends and say “Darkness washed over the Dude.” (8 p.m., $40-75, all ages)

Just in case you were wondering, in “Mr. Hip Presents” the “Presents” is a verb, not a noun: This isn’t just a nickname for a guy who gives really trendy gifts to all his friends. Mr. Hip, a.k.a. Donald Vincent, hosts a poetry/spoken word/music series at UFORGE Gallery in JP, and recently added the monthly Youth Reads night at Trident Booksellers & Cafe on Newbury Street. The event will showcase four or five poets under 18, plus readings and a Q&A with guest poet Andrew Peterson. (7 p.m., FREE, all ages)

Bridge Repertory Theatre’s new production of “The Forgetting Curve” opens Thursday, sure to delight fans of the always enjoyable “person who can’t form new memories” genre, including gems like “Memento,” “50 First Dates,” and “that time I got so drunk I tried to close my bar tab six times even though I never even opened one.” The play follows a fictional neuroscientist who dedicates her life’s work to the study of the real-life Patient HM, a young man desperate to cure his epilepsy who underwent a neurological procedure that went tragically awry. (7:30 p.m., $22.50-45, all ages)

Photo credit: Smart Destinations/Creative Commons

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