A Poetry Slam and a sold-out Annie Liebowitz reading and a book about gorillas tonight, along with things I'm actually going to talk about.

At Redwood, at around Happy Hour Time and for the duration of a couple of basketball games, the authors of The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac will talk with anyone who shows up about basketball. These are the people behind the Freedarko basketball blog. I don't like sports, but I know that this book looks like an amazing book, like if McSweeney's published a basketball guide. It's shocking to me that this is the reading of the night, but there you go. They look like smart, funny people.

Up in the Ballard branch of the library, Jay Spenser will read from The Airplane: How Ideas Gave us Wings. Are there airplane fanatics the way there are model train fanatics? If so, they'll be there tonight.

Up at Third Place Books, Richard Silverstein reads from A Time to Speak Out: Essays on Israel/Palestine. This will surely be a civil evening, as every discussion I've ever had about Israel and Palestine has remained a civil and courteous discussion.

And at Town Hall, Robert Laughlin reads from The Crime of Reason: And the Closing of the Scientific Mind, which is about how 95% of all American scientists now believe Jesus rode around on the back of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

The full readings calendar, including the next week or so, is here.