Urban Discoveries Baltimore

Keep your eyes peeled and your blood pumping, because this week’s socially engaged events aren’t for those of a lukewarm temperament:

I know we already mentioned Baltimore Pride, but the twenty-four-year-old annual festival bears elaboration. Pin a rainbow flag to your lapel and make it a schmancy one, because Pride’s first event is Twilight on the Terrace this Friday, June 19 at 8:00 p.m., an evening of high culture in and around Gertrude’s restaurant at the Baltimore Museum of Art in Charles Village (10 Art Museum Drive). Tickets are $75, but that gets you into the swankiest of Pride’s sub-fêtes, featuring hors d’oeuvres, an open bar, and a silent auction. Proceeds go to the obvious good cause. Then Saturday at 4:00 p.m. (just after the high-heel race), the parade begins down Charles Street through the heart of Mount Vernon, followed by musical performances, drag contests, and spontaneous revelry. Sunday afternoon brings a whole ‘nother lineup. This year’s costume suggestion: overly supportive PFLAG parents.

Ignite Baltimore is not an incitement to arson, but rather a community performance/meeting in which sixteen presenters each take five minutes and twenty slides to pitch an original idea. The time limit is rigid, which means the whole thing lasts about an hour and a half. The third iteration of this conceptual feat goes up Thursday, June 25 at the Wind-up Space in Station North (12 W. North Avenue). Register here or show up at 6:00 p.m. feeling lucky. Admission is free, and that’ll get you free pizza, too. Topics this go-around include Better Tea, the Capitalist Redemption, and the Meaning of Life.

Finally, here’s a chance to do a good deed… and then get some swag for doing it. The Red Cross is holding a blood drive this Saturday, June 20 from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at Oriole Park at Camden Yard (333 W. Camden Street) in the Warehouse. Bleed a little and you’ll get yourself a t-shirt and two tickets to an Orioles game. Also the gratitude of Baltimore’s blood-needing children. Sign up here.

What’s keeping you engaged this week?

Posted in: Things To Do This WeekendNo Comments