We have quite the week ahead of us and I hope that you won’t let the nasty weather stop you from attending some of the great events taking place.

On Monday night head out to Galapagos to witness a new kind of open mike night- Open Variety Night!

Artists are invited to perform in New York City’s first certified green cultural venue. The monthly showcase is open to all variety entertainers: jugglers, hoofers, magicians, aerialists, physical comedians, opera singers, violin playing pogo stickers, steppers, acrobats. The stage is here for artists to work out material in front of a live audience.

The Open Variety Stage is a response to variety artists — circus, sideshow, vaudeville, etc. — not having a stage to work on new material with a live audience.  Although there are a number of open mics in the city, few provide spaces high and wide enough for the work that many of us do. We aim to create a supportive laboratory for emerging artists and professionals alike to work on material, try new bits, and reawaken old acts.

This event is particularly exciting because it is being presented in partnership with the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus– a fantastic organization my friend D used to volunteer for (you might say she actually ran away to the circus…).

On Tuesday I for one am going to see South Pacific at the Lincoln Center Theater. Some of the original cast will be leaving the show soon so you should definitely get tickets if you want to see it! I will be sure to post my review though I very much doubt that it will be anything but glowing.

If I was not going to the theater I would definitely be checking out the Bushwick Book Club.

The Bushwick Book Club meets the first Tuesday of every month at Goodbye Blue Monday and employs the delirious talents of local songwriters who plumb the depths and scrape the ends of a chosen literary gem to create that rare and beautiful thing – a new song. All songs are then displayed, spread wide, in one hour. It’s an hour-long orgy of book-related songs and book-inspired food and drink. If that doesn’t sound indulgent enough, I don’t want to know you, you sick, sick bastard.

Head out to Goodbye Blue Monday and enjoy the indulgence.

On Wednesday the InDigest Reading Series at Le Poisson Rouge will include a free absinthe tasting from 6-7. After you’re all properly liquored up Jibade-Khalil Huffman and Paul Dickinson will read.

On Wednesday check out Sustainable NYC and join in converting your trash into treasure. Bring your “exciting cardboard” and team up with the recycling junkies, creative geniuses and pack-rats of our fine city to create wallets, postcards, pencil boxes, and more!

Starting on Wednesday you can be part of the selection process for the NYC Downtown Short Film Festival. Audience screenings will be taking place Wednesday through Saturday so for once you could have a say in which films make it big.

This Thursday  Tom Raworth and Peter Richards will be reading at Solas as part of the St. Mark’s Bookshop Reading Series. These two accomplished poets are sure to bring an interesting crowd- go for the people watching if nothing else!

The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Rendez-Vous with French Cinema series begins on Thursday with a screening of ‘Paris 36.’ The New York Times says:

The happy news about the 2009 series, whose remaining screenings take place at the Walter Reade Theater and the IFC Center, is that overall it is the best in years: a heartening development after a precipitous falloff last year. In addition to “Mesrine” and “Séraphine,” it includes major new films by Claire Denis (“35 Shots of Rum”), Agnès Varda (“The Beaches of Agnès”) and Benoît Jacquot (“Villa Amalia”) and a diabolically witty homage to the mystery writer Georges Simenon by Claude Chabrol (“Bellamy”) in which Gérard Depardieu plays a Maigret-like police investigator. Mr. Chabrol’s first movie with Mr. Depardieu, “Bellamy” also marks his 50th year as a director.

The series continues until the 15th; be sure to get your tickets for the screenings at the Walter Reade Theater or the IFC sooner rather than later!

Stay tuned for additions as the week progresses!