Nerd City, Population: YOU

Judging from all of my oh-so-secret events lists, it  seems as though the stars have aligned to make July 14, 2o09, the Day of the Nerd.  Which is awesome.

As movies and television have patiently explained, and as the Lower East Side has consistently demonstrated, the nerds are gonna inherit the earth and all that. What was considered lame in the 80s and 90s (reading, wearing glasses, knowing about technology) is not only cool but lucrative, while what was cool back then (benchpressing, wearing shirts like this, thinking a lot about fast cars, using the term “babes”) is lame and pathetic now, as it should be.

Part and parcel with the nerds and their delightful, ipoddy revenge, comes a slew of activities this evening, and they are all gloriously free.

BUT, in an ever-fiendish plot that would tax the strategizing skills of even the most gelding-worthy Dungeon Master, the nerds have organized this evening so that all three of the activities below are taking place at the same time!!!

So unless you personally know cinema’s very favorite nerd of all, and he can come get you in that DeLorean, you’re gonna have to pick just one.

At 8 PM The Bushwick Book Club is gathering at Goodbye Blue Monday for a musical revue of songs and compositions inspired by Miranda July’s No One Belongs Here More Than You. Sure it’s a hipper version of a book club but pretty damn nerdy nonetheless. There’ll be beverages inspired by the novel as well, so swing on by this evening and find out what happens when musicians read!

8 p.m. / Goodbye Blue Monday [1087 Broadway, Brooklyn] / Free

OR

At the exact same time, over in South Brooklyn, at the latest installment of the Secret Science Club listen to Paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson discuss human evolution.  This is the guy who discovered the bones of Lucy'”a 3.2-million-year-old early hominid'”in the Afar region of Ethiopia. With about 40 percent of her skeleton intact, Lucy represented a new species, Australopithecus afarensis.

Say whaaaaat?

Tonight he’ll discuss all aspects of our evolution as a species, including our ability to walk and the real facts behind those wacky assertions that we are descended from monkeys.

8PM/ Bell House [149 7th St bet 2nd and 3rd Aves, Gowanus]/ Free

And finally  tonight in Central Park, pull up a patch of grass, slice open some brie and uncork the Yellowtail because the NY Philharmonic’s got a free concert in the Park!  It’s their first free show this summer.

Mozart and Beethoven are on the program along with a fireworks show immediately afterward. Given the beautiful weather we’ve been having, I think this event is the clear winner.

8 p.m. /Great Lawn at Central Park / Free