It's a big outdoor weekend, so good thing there are 51 outdoor pools opening up for the season around the city today (here's a "best of" list). If you prefer to stay dry, here are some options... EVENT: The Afro Punk series begins at BAMcafé tonight. The series kicks off with a spotlight on the Black Panthers, including "an Opening Night discussion with Black Panther co-Founder Bobby Seale, Gloria Rolando’s Eyes of the Rainbow (1997),......

COMEDY: If you missed Paul Scheer, Rob Huebel and Aziz Ansari at Summerstage last night - you can catch them all together tonight as Human Giant takes over UCB tonight. What to expect?: "Each week they present a collection of sketches, short films, and presentations that have all been pre-approved by the other "human giant" - Michael Clarke Duncan. In addition, if anyone leaves the show unsatisfied, Mr. Duncan has agreed to go to......

EVENT: Help raise some money for the good fight with the Rude Mechanical Orchestra and Time's Up! Two long time allies are coming together to raise money and awareness for the environment. RMO is NYC's punk rock radical marching band and will lead the evening of music that includes Monkeyshine 9, Heavy Creatures, Quick Release and Phil Not Bombs. Also featuring DJ Suggested D's dance floor madness and the infamous blender bike. Time's Up!'s has......

EVENT: Even if the Freegans have a photo of a pale vegan going through the dumpster for food on the front page of their website, this is actually a really amazing group of people that we could all learn a lot from. Tonight, for example, they will teach you how to build bikes using abandoned parts found around the city. Tools and know-how supplied. 7pm // Bicycle Rescue & Repair [327 W. 36th St between......

Exactly one month from today, the New York Fringe Festival opens -- consider yourself warned! But the week before, the granddaddy of indie theater festivals, Edinburgh's Fringe, roars to life; as usual, a number of American shows are making their way over there, and eight of them are warming up in front of the home crowd one more time, in the "East to Edinburgh" festival that starts today. Shows include Godlight's spectacular staging of Fahrenheit......

MOVIES: DUMBO's weekly evening film event, Movies with a View, begins tonight with The Wizard of Oz. Bring your iPod and play "Dark Side of the Moon" while the movie plays, it'll, like, totally synch up if you press play during the 3rd lion roar. Halcyon DJs provide music before the film and there is free valet bike parking. And there will be snacks, there will. 6pm, Film at sundown // Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park,......

THEATER: The Ontological-Hysteric Theatre itself is a great incubator for avant-garde performance art-type work, so when they have an incubator program themselves, you know what you're seeing there will be fresh and startling. Banana Bag and Bodice was in the program last year with Panel. Animal and is back with The Sewers, a "conjuring act" in which a village called, um, The Sewers, disappears one night in the theatre, leading to a love triangle and......

ART: Tonight Dreamland: Coney Island 1905-1925 opens. The exhibit is opened through August 19th and features "original drawings, blueprints, and vintage photographs of New York City’s favorite amusement park, Coney Island." Opening Reception 6 to 8pm // Ricco Maresca Gallery [529 West 20th St] // Free THEATER: The year's not half over, but we'd bet good money that Men Eat Mars Bars While Touching Their Penis, which opens tonight, would win the prize for most......

THEATER: Shakespeare in the Park may be having its formal opening today, but at the Paradise Factory Shakespeare is Dead http://www.eastcheaprep.com/home, or so goes the title of Orran Farmer's new play starring Luke Rosen and Chelsea Lagos, which is about "what happens to love when the poetry is gone." An artistic couple -- writer and actress -- must somehow move past the death of their child so that they can continue their own lives and......

READINGS: Sebastian Junger (co-owner of the Half King) will be reading there tonight from his latest book, A Death in Belmont. The book ties into Junger's own life eerily - back in 1963 when Junger was a small boy growing up in Belmont, Massachusetts, Bessie Goldberg was murdered down the street from his home. Following the stories of the two different men suspected of committing the crime (and one of them working at Junger's family......

MOVIES: Don't forget, the Bryant Park movies start tonight! The movie won't begin until sunset - which is about the same time the rain and thunder are scheduled to begin. Tonights features in Alfred Hitchcock's thriller, The Birds. Be an early bird (heh) and get there at 5 for a good spot on the lawn! 5pm // Bryant Park // Free ART: Like Sculpture? Like to hear people talk about it? Then attend MoMA's On......

On Sundays Gothamist runs opinion pieces relevant to life in New York and reviews of recent books and performances. The judgments expressed below are entirely those of the author. If I tried just to describe moment by moment the dynamic of the two characters’ interaction in Nerve , you might well get the impression that it’s basically an off-off-Broadway equivalent of a date movie, and that the main point is to see which of the......

COMEDY: Our favorite duo, Gil Faizon (Nick Kroll) and George St. Geegland (John Mulaney), will be bringing their "Oh Hello" show to UCB. Drop by, even if it's just for their famous Tuna-tina recipe. In addition, there will be NEW drink recipes...and special guests. Photo of the duo, taken at Movable Hype, via Bluejake. Friday // 7pm // UCB Theater [226 W th St] MUSIC: If you got shut out of Band of Horses tonight......

EVENT: The only thing better than a tag sale is a swap sale. It's pretty much like going through a friends closet and taking what you fancy. Tonight, free up some of your own closet space and bring down all the clothes you want to get rid of to Thrift On! Others will do the same, and you'll likely go home with some goodies to fill up all that newly found closet space of yours.......

READING: Head down to the awesome 192 Books to catch New Yorker A.M. Homes read from her latest, hyperbolically-titled novel - This Book Will Save Your Life. A.M. Homes, whose dead-pan morbidity brought us Music For Torching, brings her eye to the world of Richard Novak, a day-trader determined to change his life. Some of the reviews have been less than celebratory, but Homes is a fascinating character on the literary scene and certainly worth......