4/13: Keeping It Real

TRUE STORY:  For nearly 20 years, MTV has been jamming seven twenty-somethings into a house (or loft) and filming their every movement (and we mean every movement).  What started as a unique made-for-TV social experiment has become the longest running reality show.  Now, you have your own chance to plaster yourself all over the tube.  "The Real World" is coming to New Haven to cast for roommates for its upcoming 25th season.  If you want to be on the show (the new city hasn't been announced), bring a recent photo of yourself and proof that your between 18 and 24 to Toad's Place between 11am and 6pm.  Click here for details. 

MONKEY SEE MONKEY DO:  We're gonna throw out some words here, and we don't want you to get scared.  Ready?  Here we go.  Off-kilter, rhythmically empathic, improv-heavy, crazy stuff.  Those are some of the words used to describe L.A. band 100 Monkeys.  Tonight, the band is taking over the Webster Underground in Hartford.  The band cites influences ranging from David Bowie to Daniel Johnston to Gary Busey.  Now that's a list of role models.  Tickets for tonight's show are $15.  7pm

BOOKWORMS:  Got an ear for literature?  Satisfy your taste for words at a pair of events tonight. 

First we take you to West Hartford and the Mandell Jewish Community CenterChris Bohjalian has penned 11 books, including best-sellers like "Midwives," "The Double Bind" and "Before You Know Kindness."  He's even made Oprah's radar.  Tonight he'll speak about his two most recent books, "Skeletons at the Feast," (set in Nazi Germany) and "Secrets of Eden," (a novel about shattered faith and intimate secrets).  Tickets are $30.  7:30pm. 

Or, you can mosey over to the Russell Library in Middletown.  That's where historian Diana Ross McCain (sounds like a Wheel of Fortune clue) will discuss her book, "It Happened in Connecticut: From Witchcraft Trials to the Invention of Modern Football, Twenty-Five Events That Shaped the Nutmeg."  Among her tales, she'll discuss the witchcraft trials in Connecticut during the 1600s, and the real-life serial poisonings in Windsor in the 1900s that reportedly served as the inspiration for "Arsenic and Old Lace."  7pm.

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