Looking for something to do?

The Connecticut Gay & Lesbian Film Festival begins on Thursday, May 26th and runs through June 4th. Screenings will happen at Cinestudio on the Trinity College campus. Individual tickets are $9; discounted passes are also available for three shows and the entire festival. On June 3rd, you can check out GAZE at Real Art Ways from 5:30-8:30. This is a free gay happy hour, which fits neatly into the film festival schedule. You must be thinking, “Isn’t Pride during June as well?” Traditionally, June has been the time for gay rights celebrations and actions because of the Stonewall riots. While the major events in New York and San Francisco remain scheduled for June, the local “rally,” which has mainly been an apolitical festival in recent years, is moving to September. Maybe there will be fewer sunburns.

Anyway, you’ll have to be a decider on June 4th, or be ready to do a lot of event-hoppin’. From 5-7pm you have the chance to donate to the St. Genevieve School in Haiti and have a dinner of Haitian cuisine. The Taste of Haiti fundraiser will be held at the Franciscan Center for Urban Ministry. After getting your fill of Caribbean food, you can take a ten minute walk north to the Fr. Thomas Geokler Social Justice Fundraiser, which will be held at Sacred Heart Parish on Winthrop Street from 5-8pm. The pasta dinner (suggested donation of ten bucks) will be followed by a presentation about how to support the Youth Ministry.
There will be a fundraiser for the Hartford Jazz Society from 6-10pm at the Asylum Hill Congregational Church. How does one raise funds for jazz? With jazz. There is a suggested donation of $25, but they say that nobody will be turned away for lack of funds. From 7-9pm there will be a tribute to James Brown at the Riverfront Plaza. And,from 7-11 pm at St. James Episcopal Church in West Hartford, there will be a dance party fundraiser for Hartford Catholic Worker, which is a Catholic community in the North East neighborhood dedicated to “nonviolence, voluntary poverty, prayer, and hospitality for the homeless, exiled, hungry, and forsaken.” If you feel bored on June 4th, you might just be a boring person!

The Puerto Rican Day Parade will be on June 5th.

You can see what the mayoral candidates have to say for themselves on June 8th at the Hartford Public Library. This goes from 5:30-7:30pm, with refreshments available during that first half hour.

You can help the CT Science Center celebrate its second birthday at the Liquid Lounge on June 10th. This party from 6-10pm is for adults 21+ only. Do you know what that means? No guilt for elbowing some defenseless child out of the way so that you can play Mindball.

Februarys Liquid Lounge at the Connecticut Science Center
February's Liquid Lounge at the Connecticut Science Center

On June 11th, some of us will be celebrating the High Holiday of Connecticut Open House Day. This is the magical day that comes once every year during which entrance to many attractions are free or at a reduced price. Admission to the Wadsworth Atheneum will be free from 10-5; it’ll also be Juneteenth Family Day there. On this day the first 100 visitors to the carousel in Bushnell Park will get a free ride. There will be free admission to the Butler-McCook House & Garden, Connecticut Historical Society & Museum, Connecticut Old State House, Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, and the Real Art Ways gallery. You’ll have to pay to get a tour of the Mark Twain House & Museum, but it’ll be at a discounted price and there will be free pirate-themed outdoor activities all day for what they are dubbing Tom Sawyer Day. If you mention Connecticut Open House Day, you can get $2 shaved of your price of admission to the Connecticut Science Center. You can make a free print at Watermark Press and watch Vintage Base Ball games at Colt Meadows (in Colt Park). And all that? That’s just what’s going on in Hartford. To be utterly overwhelmed by possibilities, see the Connecticut Open House Day web page. While on the subject of museums, there is a project on Kickstarter that intends to boost the museum attendance of children. The Hartford Museum Passport, if fully funded, would be distributed to public school children and provide a kind of incentive for them to seek out more cultural experiences.

On June 18th you can catch an hour of free traditional Irish music beginning at 3pm in the Hartford Public Library. Then, spend all afternoon dressing up your bike for another Real Ride. If you want to be social about it, you can do the decorating at Real Art Ways beginning at 6pm. The ride leaves from Real Art Ways at 9pm. This is free and it does not require much athleticism, but you should have lights on your bike since, duh, this event happens at night.

On both June 18th and 19th you can celebrate “Rose Weekend” at Elizabeth Park. The roses will be in bloom before and after this, but the 800 varieties of roses will be at their rosiest this weekend. There will also be music, poetry, and family activities.

June 19th is Juneteenth, which you can mark with a Juneteenth Pilgrimage. This will begin at 5:30pm at the Charter Oak Cultural Center and end at Hartford’s African Burial Ground.

You can wrap up this busy month on June 30th by catching Sea Tea Improv perform at the Sustainable Materials Fundraiser Fashion Show. This event begins at 7pm and takes place at the CRRA Trash Museum on Murphy Road.