Cheap Chick NYC, Cheap and Free Weekend Event Picks, Jan. 14-16, 2011

Friday January 14, 2011

Smugglers, robots, aliens, and games round out the book learnin’ at Nerd Nite! Get your geek on with trivia before the main lectures begin! Trivia starts at 7 p.m. (doors open at 6:30 p.m.) Nerd Nite will start at 9 p.m. (doors open at 8:40 p.m.) $14 for trivia and Nerd Nite, $10 for Nerd Nite, buy tkts here: http://nyc.nerdnite.com

Party with mystery writers (I know it sounds like a set-up for a murder mystery or at least an ep of Murder, She Wrote!) at the Mystery Writers of America annual book party. Guests include Mary Jane Clark, Lee Goldberg, Lisa Scottoline, and many others! 6 p.m., Partners & Crime Mystery Booksellers, 44 Greenwich Ave., free!

Fashion designer Anna Sui discusses how her fall line was inspired by work of Charles Rohlfs. 8 p.m., Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fifth Ave @ 82^nd St., $25, buy tkts here: https://www.metmuseum.org/tickets/calendar/view.asp?id=3337

Saturday January 15, 2011

If Facebook’s founder has no friends, does anyone care? Ponder that as you watch The Social Network, Sony Wonder Technology Lab, 56^th and Mad., 2 p.m., free! Call the events line to RSVP at (212) 833 7858.

I would let Christian Bale deliver a paper to me anytime! You can decide for yourself at 92Y Tribeca’s Newsie’s Sing-a-long! Perhaps Anne-Margaret (I loved her as Anne-Margrock on The Flintstones and of course her turn in Bye, Bye Birdie as used in Mad Men!) can tell you the “way to Santa Fe!” 10:30 p.m., 92ndY Tribeca, 200 Hudson St., Tkts $20/$15 in advance, buy tkts here: http://www.92y.org/shop/92Tri_event_detail.asp?productid=T-MM5FJ89

Keep warm with an indoor walking tour, and then cool off with a drink during Discovery Walking Tour’s Historic Pubs and Taverns of Greenwich Village tour. The tour will cover “the history behind each tavern and stops at several for refreshment. Stops include a 1920s speakeasy once associated with founding father Thomas Paine, a pub where Robert Kennedy and Norman Mailer contemplated their political futures, and New York’s third oldest bar, a haunt of Dylan Thomas, author of “A Child’s Christmas in Wales.” 5:30 p.m., Call 212-465-3331 for reservations and meeting place, $18.

Have le fun at Le Bingo hosted by Murray Hill and Linda Simpson! 7:30-9:30 p.m., Le Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker St., free!

Learn about Brooklyn’s role in the underground railroad at this tour led by Urban Park Ranger Anne Reid. She’ll take you to sites in Fort Greene, Bed-Stuy, and Bay Ridge to see sites in the historic network. 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., meet at the Fort Greene Park Visitors Center (enter at Myrtle Ave. and Washington Park. Free, but reservations are required. Call 718-722-3218 to claim your spot on the tour!

Saturday and Sunday January 15 and 16, 2011

Discovery Walking Tours is hosting a Harlem walking tour in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with stops including the Apollo Theatre, Lenox Lounge, where Billie Holiday performed, and Blumstein’s, where an assassination attempt was made on King’s life in the 1950s. 2 p.m., call 212-465-3331 for reservations and meeting place, $18.

The Beatles and ukuleles go together like pb&j, see the magic at the Beatles Complete-On Ukulele Concert, performed by Roger Greenawalt with special guests. Brooklyn Bowl, 61 Wythe Ave @ N. 11^th St., Sat at 6 p.m., and Sun at noon, $10!

Sunday January 16, 2011

Laugh your butt off at Upright Citizens Brigade’s ASSSSCAT 3000 show! Shows at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m., Upright Citizens Brigade, 307 W. 26th, Tkts are $10 for the 7:30 p.m. and can be bought here: http://newyork.ucbtheatre.com/shows/12. The 9:30 p.m. show is free, wth tkts given out on a first-come, first-served basis starting at 8:15 p.m.

Join in a literary tradition by attending KGB Bar’s Sunday Night Fiction Series. Tonight authors Robert Lopez and Gary Lutz will read from their works. 7 p.m., KGB Bar, 85 E. 4^th St., bet Bowery and Second Ave., free!

Monday January 17, 2011 Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day! (For those of you luck enough to have the day off, check out these picks!)

Join Big Onion Walking Tours on a an historic jaunt through Harlem to honor Dr. King, while visiting haunts that may include Abyssinian Baptist Church, Striver's Row, the Big Apple Night Club, and sites associated with the Harlem Renaissance, W.E.B. Du Bois, Madame C.J. Walker, Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X and many others. Meet at the northwest corner of 135th Street and Lenox (Malcolm X) Avenue Ð in front of the Schomburg Center., $15.

Play trivia for a trivial price at Last Exit’s Pub Quiz, watch everyday, regular quiz folks flex their acting muscles, and get that burning question answered, Anne Hathaway, Canadian or Not Canadian??? 9 p.m., 136 Lafayette Ave., $5!

Don’t forget the Met is open on holiday Mondays (http://www.metmuseum.org/visit/general_information/), and Housing Works Bookstore is having a special MLK Jr. Day sale (http://www.housingworks.org/events/detail/mlk-day-sale/) today!

And all w/e long, BAM is hosting tributes to Martin Luther King Jr. (http://www.bam.org/view.aspx?pid=6), a new exhibit called “Comics Stripped” opens at the Museum of Sex (http://www.museumofsex.com/exhibit/comics-stripped), and the Museum of the Moving Image reopens with tons of workshops, activities, screenings, and a dance party Sat night (plus free admission on Monday!)-more info is here: http://www.movingimage.us/visit/calendar/2011/1/13/week/type/1/2/3/4/5