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Your weekly guide to Houston: Five (plus) don't-miss events — including the book sale of all book sales

How does a week that includes a mega book sale, a cultural film festival, a concert with Cuban soul, an outdoor shopping fete and a performance that shows off local movers and shakers sound to you? Sign me up, I say.

Read on for this week's suggestions for getting to most out of Houston happenings. As always, be sure to click on the links below each event suggestion to find additional intel, such as where to eat, drink, shop and crash for the night around your final destination.

Friends of Houston Public Library Winter Book Sale

So what if the literary world is going digital. Do I love the modern conveniences afforded by my e-book reader, which carries a stack of books in less than a pound of weight? I sure do. But there's something irresistible about holding the real McCoy.

You'll find 22,000 plus of these treasures at the Friends of Houston Library Public Library Winter Book Sale — all priced $1 for paperbacks and $2 for hardcovers.

I once scored a first edition signed copy of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Amid the masses of printed pals — in categories that include art, music, children, biography, fiction, history, how to, sports, entertainment, health, fitness and so on plus CDs and DVDs — there's surely more than one that speaks to you. All credit cards are accepted.

The skinny: Member preview is on Thursday, 4:30 to 9 p.m. (membership levels start at $20); sale is open to the public on Friday, noon to 8 p.m., and Saturday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Resurrection Metropolitan Community Church; free event.

21st Houston Iranian Film Festival

Thank goodness for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston's film department. Helmed by curator Marian Luntz, the program screens noteworthy films of today and iconic flicks of yore to offer movie buffs an alternative to lame Hollywood cliche storylines. The Houston Iranian Film Festival, MFAH's longest running film festival, bespeaks of her efforts to represent the broad range of motion pictures outside of the popular silver screen.

The lineup of six films opens with The Patience Stone, directed by Atiq Rahimi, a film that unfolds through Persian mythology to reveal what lies hidden between a man who becomes paralyzed after suffering wounds from a Jihad and his wife. From director Kambuzia Partovi and banned Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, Closed Curtain plays with reality and fiction in a setting that conveys the effects of trying to silence creative voices. Censorship is bad news all around.

The skinny: Thursday through Sunday; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; $9 general admission, discounts are available for MFAH members, seniors and students.

Da Camera presents Paquito D'Rivera with the Brasil Guitar Duo

You have to love the music of Cuban jazz mogul and clarinet plus saxophone badass Paquito de D'Rivera, whose melodies sway between slinky, frisky and a nostalgia for days gone by. His youthful energy is matched by the Brasil Guitar Duo, winners of the 2006 Concert Artists Guild competition.

Together, presented by Da Camera, expect a concert that will introduce a swing in your hips and a snap into your soul with compositions that display a timeless truth about Latin culture: Everyday is a party.

The skinny: Friday, 8 p.m.; Wortham Theater Center; tickets start at $28.

"Pop-Up in the Park" benefiting Evelyn's Park Conservancy

A new series of outdoor shopping grounds is popping up at Evelyn's Park. Food trucks and local bands add to an al fresco family-friendly ambiance that raises awareness about the five-acre urban green space in the heart of Bellaire, the former site of Teas Nursery.

Among the vendors is the super adorbs merchandise of Cuteheads, a children's clothing line designed by Esther Freedman, who's also curating the 20 plus merchants for the market. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the Evelyn's Park Conservancy in its efforts to sow the seeds for this community garden.

The skinny: Saturday, 1 to 4 p.m.; Evelyn's Park; free event.

Dance Month at the Kaplan Theatre performance: "Houston Choreographers X6"

Dance is alive and well at the Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center. An ongoing tradition at the Kaplan Theatre, Dance Month brings national and international talent to Houston for workshops and performances. The first show, "Houston Choreographers X6," presents choreography by seasoned and emerging local movers and shakers, including Rebekah Chappell, Randall Flinn, Ashley Horn, Kristina Koutsoudas, Cori Miller and Heather Nabors.

Arrive 45 minutes before show time to watch dance-inspired film.

The skinny: Saturday, 8 p.m., Sunday, 3 p.m.; Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center; $24 general admission, $18 ERJCC members, $12 seniors and students.

Among the vendors for "Pop-Up in the Park" at Evelyn's Park is Cuteheads, a children's clothing line designed by Esther Freedman.

Cuteheads Facebook

Among the vendors for "Pop-Up in the Park" at Evelyn's Park is Cuteheads, a children's clothing line designed by Esther Freedman.

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challenge your bias

Holocaust Museum Houston examines bias in Smithsonian-backed exhibit

New exhibit looks at how humans form hurtful biases.

Photo by Jef Rouner

"Bias Inside Us" at Holocaust Museum Houston.

Asked to explain bias, Robin Cavenaugh, the CMO for the Holocaust Museum Houston, pauses for a moment then cites the opening scene of HBO’s limited series Watchmen.

“I didn’t know about the Tulsa Race Massacre until I saw that show,” she says. “I work in Holocaust museum. We do exhibits on Black American history all the time. It had still somehow never come up in conversation before. That’s what bias does. It’s a system of missing information.”

That unconscious ignorance is a key component of “Bias Inside Us,” a new exhibit at the museum. A production of the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES), the exhibit examines the subtle ways that bias frames the world.

One wall is dedicated to a photography project by Spanish photographer Angélica Dass. Humanae is a series of portraits of people of various skin hues, usually framed against nondescript backgrounds. The subjects all wear the same expressions, but their faces form a rich, random tapestry of humanity that dares the viewer to see them as different.

The exhibit is divided into six sections: Introduction, The Science of Bias, Bias in Real Life, Serious Consequences—Bias is All Around Us, #RetrainYourBrain, and Personal Reflection. The science looks at how our initial biases are formed. Babies instinctively gravitate to familiar faces. If that child grows up in a homogenous environment, they will begin to distrust people who look different.

That distrust manifests in hundreds of different ways that shape the world. As one quote on the wall from Stanford social psychologist Jennifer L. Eberhardt puts is, “When people think about racism they’re thinking about bigots, but you don’t have to have a moral failing to act on an implicit bias.”

Dotted throughout the exhibit are personal stories of bias. Students seen as troublemakers by teachers of a different race, police who arrest one ethnicity at higher rates than others, even two stepsisters (one Black, one mixed race Black and white) who received different treatment in a restaurant.

Collectively these all add up to greater sociological actions.

“Here at the museum, we obviously try to tie everything back to the Holocaust,” says Cavenaugh. “Those biases, built up over hundreds or thousands of years, lead to atrocities. It’s regular people feeling an inherent distrust or fear.”

“Bias Inside Us” is a gentle exhibit. It frames the fight against bias as one of correction, not condemnation. An ad from the Love Has No Labels ad council from 2015 shows crowds reacting to X-ray portrayals of couples and families that show only their skeletons. It’s impossible to tell race or gender until the subjects come around the front to reveal who they are.

The last part is a small wall space with sticky notes and pencils. Visitors are encouraged to write the ways they will combat bias in the future and stick it to the wall. It’s a final sign that the quest to end bias starts with us making conscious change despite early ideas of trust and safety.

“Bias Inside Us” runs at the Holocaust Museum Houston until October 6.

bias inside us holocaust museum houston museums

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Your weekly guide to Houston: Five (plus) don't-miss events — including the book sale of all book sales

Among the vendors for "Pop-Up in the Park" at Evelyn's Park is Cuteheads, a children's clothing line designed by Esther Freedman.

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challenge your bias

Holocaust Museum Houston examines bias in Smithsonian-backed exhibit

CultureMap Emails Are Awesome
Get Houston intel delivered daily.