Best of the Week: September 7-11, 2015

Welcome to Best of the Week, our daily rundown of goings-on in town Monday through Friday. If you’re wondering what to do in Boston this week, check out these events.

Skaters will perform at the Allston Christmas Block Party / Courtesy photo

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 7
Allston Christmas Block Party

While it started last week, Allston Christmas ain’t over yet: Befitting the spirit of the season—when Allston’s streets are filled with free stuff ready to be hauled home—Pabst Blue Ribbon, Do617, and Allston Village Main Streets are teaming up to throw a free block party. Catch performances by SKATERS, Michael Christmas, Dirty Fences, CREATUROS, and IAN, with Lifted Contingency’s Kidd Drunkadelic on the turntables between sets. And you can watch skate demos inside Orchard Conservatory Skatepark at POP Allston while double-fisting PBRs and Roxy’s Gourmet Grilled Cheese sandwiches, which you can obtain from their respective carb-dispensing trucks on-site.

Free with RSVP. 12-6 p.m., POP Allston, 89 Brighton Ave, Allston. RSVP at do617.com.

Cover of Michelle Tea’s How to Grow Up: A Memoir

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8
Michelle Tea

At age 19, Michelle Tea ditched her hometown of Chelsea, and stumbled into a life on the fringes in California that led to a literary career and a celebrated status as a queer feminist icon. Ever since she published The Passionate Mistakes and Intricate Corruption of One Girl in America in 1998, her works have leaned heavily autobiographical, mining her experiences in activism, sex work, and alternative parenthood. But her latest book is a little different. The concept of How to Grow Up: A Memoir, as she she recently described it to the Rumpus, is “I used to be a wild dirt bag and then I got my shit together—here’s how I did it.” Tonight, the Massachusetts native returns for a reading at the Brookline Booksmith.

Free, 7 p.m., Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard St., Brookline, 617-566-6660, brooklinebooksmith.com.

Stephen King and Lee Child / Courtesy photos (Lee Child photo by Sigrid Estrada)

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9
Lee Child in Conversation with Stephen King

If you’re a fan of Lee Child’s hard-boiled Jack Reacher series, you’re in good company. Maine horrormeister Stephen King is such a devoted Reacher Creature, he even worked shoutouts into his book Under the Dome. According to King, “If you’re not hip to rambling adventurer Jack Reacher, you’ve missed a mother lode of escapist entertainment.” For this month’s Harvard Book Store event, King makes a rare public appearance with Child to talk about Child’s latest, Make Me.

$32, 7:30 p.m., Sanders Theatre, 617-661-1515, harvard.com.

George Scialabba / Courtesy photo by Stu Rosner

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10
The Baffler Presents “Three Cheers for George Scialabba”

Labor Day, Schmabor Day—the real holiday we’re looking forward to is George Scialabba Day, observed on September 10, as decreed by the Cambridge City Council (no, really).

So who, exactly, is George Scialabba? In a way, he’s the People’s Republic’s answer to Harvey Pekar: Scialabba has spent 35 years toiling on clerical work in the basement of Harvard’s Center for Government and International Studies, while simultaneously authoring over 400 works of polymathic brilliance, invoking subjects ranging from Aristotle to Zizek.

Last month, Scialabba officially retired from his desk job, and tonight, Cambridge criticism journal (one of his many creative outlets) The Baffler is bringing together a few select Scialabba fans—including Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, Thomas Frank, Rick Perlstein, and Nikil Saval—for a star-studded evening of “celebrating independent thought in the age of Trumpism.” There’s even a brass band. Proceeds go toward the foundation of a Committee to Preserve George Scialabba and Others Like Him (If Any).

$5, 7-9 p.m., Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St. For tickets, go to thebaffler.com.

A Little Night Music (actor credits below) / Courtesy photos by Nile Scott Shots/Nile Hawver

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11
A Little Night Music

As Huntington Theatre Company artistic director Peter DuBois confided to the Globe earlier this week, the way he sees it, A Little Night Music can be summed up in two words: sex and death. Stephen Sondheim’s 1973 musical tells the story of a group of intertwined couples navigating the labyrinth that is love—self-tormenting, embarrassing, unrelenting love. Ready to “Send in the Clowns”? They’ll be here on Friday, when DuBois’s production opens at the BU Theatre.

Runs September 11-October 11, BU Theatre, 264 Huntington Ave, Boston, 617-266-0800, huntingtontheatre.org.

Photos: Clockwise from top left: Haydn Gwynne (Desiree Armfeldt), Bobbie Steinbach (Madame Armfeldt), and Lauren Weintraub (Fredrika Armfeldt); Morgan Kirner (Anne Egerman) and Pablo Torres (Henrik Egerman); Mike McGowan (Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm) and Lauren Molina (Countess Charlotte Malcolm); Stephen Bogardus (Fredrik Egerman) and Gwynne.