John Hodgman's first book, The Areas of My Expertise, turned the trivia-book genre into an exercise in supershort fiction. His newest book, More Information Than You Require, applies this formula to memoir, describing what Hodgman's surprise midlife fame—the Apple ads! the movies!—is really like. It's hard to imagine fake trivia being deeply personal, but amid the one-liners (the citizens of Richmond, Virginia, call a sandwich a "meat coffin" and "Randy Quaid has had secret rabies since 1991") there's the story of a man who is grateful for, and deeply puzzled by, his own success. (Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave, 652-4255. 7:30 pm, $5.)

The large back room at the Frye Art Museum has been mostly sealed off, and it's dark in there. Two facing walls of videos and mirrors stand in the center; on them, sexy young men and women perform a parodic restaging of a 16th-century German mariner's account of Brazilian cannibals, this time set on a favela rooftop to catchy beats. The installation, by Mauricio Dias and Walter Riedweg, is the beating heart of this season at the Frye; the artists will give a talk about traveling the world and making art out of social distortion. (Frye Art Museum, 704 Terry Ave, 622-9250. 7 pm, free.)