Can't Miss It: Tuesday

TURN OFF THE TV AND GO SEE A STORYTELLER: Writer Sherman Alexie reads from his new collection of stories, War Dances, at Town Hall tonight. We’ve been entranced by him since we saw his 1988 foray into screenwriting, Smoke Signals. Alexie is a great writer and a better reader. We think there’s not much you can do better than to have a great storyteller read to you on a rainy Tuesday night in fall.

7:30 p.m. // Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Avenue // $5

OLD WORLD BRUTALITY: On the other hand, if you’re in a less literary mood tonight, you should go see Children of Bodom at the Showbox at the Market. The Finnish group plays heavy metal the way you expect a Finnish band to play heavy metal: with equal parts technical grace and Old World brutality. Vocalist Alexi Laiho sounds genuinely pained rather than angst-ridden, and the band plays their instruments with such casual acuity that the band would be almost irritating if they weren’t so listenable. With the Black Dahlia Murder and Skeletonwitch. All ages show.

7:00 p.m. // Showbox at the Market, 1426 First Avenue // $23

PHOTOGRAPHY AT THE G. GIBSON GALLERY: Metal and literature not up your alley? Then see the Jacques-Henri Lartigue and Marion Post Wolcott exhibit at the G. Gibson Gallery. Lartigue took stunning early photographs of French life - family, friends, blimps, automobile races -- prior to World War I. His images of urban life are sweetly quirky and full of whimsy in a way that could only have been possible prior to two world wars. If you're a fan of the movie Rushmore, you owe it to yourself to see his work, as director Wes Anderson has drawn on Lartigue’s photographs for inspiration. Lartigue’s photographs are accompanied by the photography of Marion Post Wolcott, who worked with the Farm Security Administration during the 1930s and 40s. Her work stands in stark contrast to the playfulness of Lartigue’s otherworldly images: Wolcott photographed poverty and work and the simple pleasures that arose in the cracks between deprivation and toil. Seen together, the work of Lartigue and Wolcott illuminate a world that has moved on. We can't return to the past, but it is wonderful to visit from time to time.

11: a.m. - 5:00 p.m. // G. Gibson Gallery, 300 South Washington Street Venue // Tickets: $FREE