weekend event planner

Here are the top 14 things to do in Houston this weekend

Opa! The Original Greek Festival returns this weekend.

Photo courtesy of St. Basil the Great Christian Orthodox Church

Fall is here, and that means festivals (Greek Fest), fashion (Fashion X), and...depressed cakes (?). We're curious about that last one too. Look forward to a weekend packed with fun, can't-miss events.

Thursday, October 4

Eat and be merry at the 52nd Houston Original Greek Festival
The Original Greek Festival, held at the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral has been around for 52 years, hipping Houston folk to the delicious food (did someone say moussaka), festive dancing, and other fascinating facets of Greek culture. This year, there will be tours of the newly expanded Cathedral, live music from the Golden Greek ensemble, and an Athenian playground for the younger set. 5-10 pm (11 am-10 pm Saturday; Noon-6 pm Sunday).

The runway rocks at Fashion X Houston
Fashion X Houston is back, style-savvy, fashionista friends. For three nights, models will be walking the runway, decked out in duds from emerging and established Houston-based fashion designers, including winners and all-stars from that do-or-die reality competition Project Runway. Proceeds from each night will be donated to the event's VIP Style Setters' local Houston nonprofits of choice. 6:30 pm

Learn just how much damage humans can do in this new exhibit
Whether you want to accept it or not, humanity just has a knack for picking off species one after the next. Houston-based multidisciplinary artist/anthropologist Lina Dib is here to remind people of that with her new exhibit, aptly titled Like There is No Tomorrow. Created in collaboration with Taylor Knapps at Main Street Projects Gallery, this large-scale, interactive video instillation examines the decline of species caused by human interactions. 7-10 pm.

Friday, October 5

Join in on the jam-band love with ElectroLuv 2018
ElectroLuv 2018 may sound like a music festival where you'd hear nothing but EDM coming out of every nook and cranny of the place and see people dancing in one spot forever, zonked out of their minds on some substance. But this two-day live-a-palooza is actually devoted to jam bands and the fans who love them. You'll get groups with names like Drum Circle, Hell in a Bucket, Heights Funk Collective and — our favorite — PotRoast. 6:30 pm.

See the theatrical side of Snoop Dogg in his new show
Snoop Dogg has taken some odd detours in his life. You can currently see him on television, co-hosting the VH1 cooking show Martha & Snoop's Potluck Party with Martha Stewart and as host of the rebooted game show The Joker's Wild. But this weekend, you can actually catch him on stage — not at a live concert, but as the star of the stage show, Redemption of a Dogg. Not only will Snoop perform some of his classics, but he'll drop some tunes from his gospel album Bible of Love. 8 pm (3 pm Saturday and Sunday; 7:30 pm Sunday).

Saturday, October 6

Sip on wine and buy some art at the Texas Wine & Art Festival
Here at CultureMap, we love to attend art-exhibit opening receptions where you can look at art while drinking. So, of course, we're glad to hear that the Texas Wine & Art Festival is back. This two-day fest will highlight 15 Texas-based wineries, while artisan booths will be selling hand-crafted artworks, photography, fashion, crafts, and so much more. 10 am-6 pm (11 am-5 pm Sunday).

The MFAH has some kicks off its latest, royal-themed exhibit
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is going all out for its Tudors to Windsors: British Royal Exhibits from Holbein to Warhol exhibit, starting Sunday. But, before that, there will be a screening of The Queen, the 2007 movie that won star Dame Helen Mirren an Oscar. After that, there's a lecture, "Kings and Queens: Royal Portraiture at the National Portrait Gallery, Houston," presented by Louise Stewart, the gallery's curator of 16th-century to contemporary collections. 1 pm.

Return to David Lynch's strange world with Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
David Lynch wasn't done with Twin Peaks when his ultra-weird-but-buzzworthy nighttime soap was cancelled in 1991. The following year, he made Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, a prequel that fizzled at the box office mainly because it was even more baffling & strange than the original show. Now that Lynch gave us that Peaks reboot that aired on Showtime last year, it turns out this cult fave serves as the haunting bridge between these two shows. It's still weird though. 10 pm.

Stand-up comedy and rap join forces for The Krunk Komedy Tour
The Krunk Komedy Tour promises to be an evening of Southern-fried rap along with downright ignant (not "ignorant" — ignant) stand-up comedy. On the comedy side, look for headlining comedians Donnell Rawlings (Chappelle's Show) and Red Grant (Def Comedy Jam, Comic View), along with several other funny folk. And over on the rap side, expect the Ying Yang Twins, Lil Scrappy, Yung Joc, Travis Porter, Young Dro, and Houston's very own Trae tha Truth. 8:30 pm.

Sunday, October 7

Bike and learn about the city at this bike rally/scavenger hunt
The 13th Annual Houston Heights Bicycle Rally and Scavenger Hunt once again seeks out kids and families to have some heart-pumping fun, while also hipping them to local history along the way. The heart-pumping will happen during the bicycle rally, where riders can select from a five-mile, 20-mile or new stroller-and-bike parade. As for the hunt, it will highlight historical and notable landmarks throughout the ride. Prizes will be awarded during the after-party. 8 am-5:30 pm.

Sample baked goods at The Depressed Cake Shop
Okay, this sounds interesting. This sixth-annual event showcases donated cakes and desserts that could also double as art pieces. These baked goods are usually decorated in somber colors that "signify the gray cloud that can descend over a beautiful world when someone is struggling with mental issues." But don't worry — slices of these goodies will be available for purchase, as the proceeds will go to NAMI Greater Houston and The Montrose Center. Noon-4 pm.

Learn about Houston neighborhoods with Cigna Sunday Streets
Now in its fifth year, the monthly Cigna Sunday Streets returns to spotlight Houston's most unique neighborhoods, with a focus on hyping up alternative transportation as well as supporting neighborhood economies and a sense of community. This combination bike/walking tour will focus on three parts of town: Near Northside, Rice Village and Downtown Houston. First up is Near Northside, part of Mayor Turner's Complete Communities initiative. Noon-4 pm.

Feast on delicious meats at The Woodlands BBQ Festival
This has us salivating all over our keyboards. The third-annual barbecue throwdown will have a diverse collection of pitmasters grilling up a storm and serving all-you-can-sample portions. With all this artery-clogging goodness ready to go down, it's kinda ironic that this fest is also benefitting pulmonary hypertension. 1-4 pm.

Pets get blessed at St. Luke's Blessing of the Animals
Is there anything you wouldn't do for your dog? If you would like your dog to be welcomed into the kingdom of Heaven when he or she passes on, you can take your mutt to this special service, where people can bring their pets to be blessed. If all dogs truly go to heaven, this event is out to make sure of it. 4-5:30 pm.

event-planner

jaw-dropping jaws

Gigantic 50-foot shark dives into Houston museum for jaw-dropping new showcase of Earth's greatest predator

Sharks! The Meg, The Monsters & The Myths HMNS

Photo courtesy of Houston Museum of Natural Science

Yes, this is actually scale.

By the numbers, the great white shark is one of the most fearsome predators to ever exist on planet Earth. Consider:

Photo courtesy of Houston Museum of Natural Science

Yes, this is actually scale.

The largest great white ever recorded spanned 20 feet – half the size of a school bus — and weighed at least 5,000 pounds.
At any given moment, great whites possess 300 teeth — measuring up to 6.6 inches — and can regenerate and replace up to 20,000 in a lifetime.
Swimming up to 35 miles per hour, a great white can launch itself out of the water like a missile.

But those stats are child's play to the great white's prehistoric predecessor, the megalodon (which literally means "big tooth"), which grew to 65 feet long. Known by scientists and fans as the "Meg," the massive monster will star in Houston Museum of Natural Science's new exhibit Sharks! The Meg, The Monsters & The Myths.

The immersive shark fest opens Friday, May 26 to members and Saturday, May 27 to the general public. Tickets are available online.

Dive into the shark tank

Meant to educate and inspire awe and curiosity rather than hysteria, the new exhibition features six galleries that include live shark tank, 14 life-sized models, interactive and touchable items, dazzling digital displays, fun photo ops, and meg-sized chunks of information about the ocean's apex predators.

Visitors can meet these fin-tastic friends via a 360-square-foot virtual “shark tank,” where sharks of all shapes and sizes (there are eight different orders and more than 500 species) swim by, showing off their sleek shapes, bioluminescence, and grace.

Meet the monster Meg

A giant, life-sized, 50-foot model of a female megalodon — in full swim pose and jaws that easily down an entire refrigerator or a few humans — wide open in a toothy grin. The megalodon's sheer mass compared to humans, its color (gray to reflect the sea wall with a "great white" belly) will be on display for photos and wow moments.

Another gallery takes viewers back more than 400 million years to the earliest sharks and fossilized shark teeth. Each visitor can select a fossilized tooth dating back to the Miocene era to keep as part of the journey.

Some gentle bamboo and epaulette sharks will join stingrays (cousins of sharks), sea urchins, and a host of other sea dwellers in an easily viewable tank, which will offer an up-close-and-personal perspective as to why these creatures are so essential to the ecosystem.

No excursion would be complete without swag, and this one offers up toys, puzzles, t-shirts, magnets, and more at the Island Store, which also houses megalodon teeth, fossilized coral, and a 100,000-year-old giant fossil clamshell.

Fans of these finned friends

While they have survived every mass extinction event in the past 450 million years and have ruled their water kingdom for some 300,000 years, sharks are now in peril by the worst predator of all: humans. Spurred by bloodlust after the release of the 1975 epic film and novel Jaws and other sensational pop culture vehicles, an average of 100 million sharks are killed by humans each year.

Whether for sport, shark fin soup (where fins are cut off while the shark is cast back still alive and left to drown), scientists worry that this decimation could mean the end for many of these astounding creatures. '

“Sharks are remarkably diverse and efficient predators but are more threatened than threatening. In fact, over one-third of shark species are now facing the threat of extinction,” said Nicole Temple, the exhibit curator. “With this exhibition, we hope that our guests are able to explore the misconceptions, mysteries, and mystique of sharks to help pave the way for conservation efforts, as well as explore their unique adaptations and behaviors that continue to inspire scientific innovation around the world.”

“Sharks are critical to maintaining the health of our oceans, which are a huge carbon sink for the planet,” Temple adds. “Really, sharks help keep us alive.”

Consider this a chance to visit to a monstrous meg, snap a selfie, and say thanks.

-----

Sharks! The Meg, The Monsters & The Myths opens Friday, May 26 (members) and Saturday, May 27 (general public) at Houston Museum of Natural Science, 5555 Hermann Park Dr. For tickets and more information, visit HMNS online.