It's long been standard entertainment industry practice for creative types to dress down in meetings, perhaps because writers or directors can more easily accept the dismantling of their artistic visions when notes like, "Is there any way that the character of Miguel can be less, I don't know, Hispanic-y?" are delivered by someone with the authority conferred by a more expensive wardrobe. Then one day, a suit across the table secretly envied the casual look of the poor slob he was about to mind-rape, self-consciously showed up to work the next day wearing designer jeans and loafers without socks, and the next thing you know, everyone in California is wearing goddamn flip-flops everywhere they go—movie premieres, formerly dressy coke parties in the Hills, funerals, wherever—and within minutes we have Mass Adoption Of A Hollywood Trend. In today's NY Times, Sharon Waxman reports on the flip-floptimization of our world, with the requisite quote from a well-known producer-type who's seen the ultra-casual footwear out in the field:

• Implosion features a smattering of artists showing off with video installations, "conceptual signage," and other variations on the highbrow. Put on your chi-chi hat and join the fun. [flavorpill]
• MoMA screens Walk the Line as a part of its month-long James Mangold celebration. One more chance to see Joaquin's pompadour span 15 feet — just as God intended it. [Paper]
• In the past three weeks, three cyclists have been killed on the road. Tonight, put on a helmet and participate in a memorial bike ride in honor of Carl Nacht, Derek Lake, and Donna Goodson. 6:30 PM, Hudson River Greenway at 46th Street, in front of the Intrepid.

• The Ark plays Bowery Ballroom with Baby Dayliner. Insert obvious, Jersey-specific weather joke here. [flavorpill]
• Madonna kicks off the first of a six-night romp at Madison Square Garden. Available tickets are (of course) extravagantly priced, but Lourdes really needs her own Kabbalah instructor. [MSG]
• It's like Christmas, only wackier: misfits everywhere rejoice as Jerri Blank hits the big screen. [NYT]

• From You To Me and Back Again offers a collections of prints and installations which "engage and interrogate past and current modes of photographic image production." Translation: two Polaroids, a camera phone, and creepy gallery lighting. [flavorpill]
• The Brazilian Girls take Pier 54 by storm for a free concert. Ronaldo was already booked. [WUNYC]
• What does your neighborhood say about you? (Ours says that Daddy bought those stovepipe pants.) Hear Roy Wasserman's take on neighborhood sterotypes tonight. [Paper]

• Galapagos hosts a 10th birthday party for Ocularis, "North Brooklyn's destination for experimental film and video." They grow up so fast, those hipsters. [flavorpill]
• Broadway copies Shakespeare and takes to the park. Bring an umbrella and your tap shoes to the Great Lawn for Broadway Under the Stars. [Upcoming]
• Big Night gives you just enough Stanley Tucci action to hold you over until the opening of The Devil Wears Prada. [Paper]

Friday:
• The Road To Guantanamo follows the story of the Tipton Three, "the British Muslims unjustly held in Guant namo Bay for two years." Get out your protest signs and hop on the angry bandwagon. [flavorpill]
• "We're Doing It For Love:" Robert Plant, Ryan Adams and the Cardinals, and a bunch of other people play in a benefit concert for Arthur Lee. Blow your rent money tonight at the Beacon Theater. [Prefix]

• MSTRKRFT, a DJ duo with "electro-shimmer," perform tonight at Hiro Ballroom. BYO vowels. [flavorpill]
• TRL for Grown-ups: MonkeyTown screens "surrealist music videos," which is apparently what happens when you combine a legitimate director with a conspicuously indie artists. [Paper]
• Since you can't get tickets to the Air Guitar Championship anyway, check out Asobi Seksu at the Mercury Lounge. The name means "play sex" in Japanese. It can't be too bad. [Prefix]

E! Online's Megaplex column ventured over to Hollywood Boulevard to interview two of the Captain Jack Sparrow impersonators who work the sidewalk in front of the Kodak and Chinese theaters, who should be seeing a serious spike in income once the new Pirates of the Caribbean sequel opens. We've excerpted a little from Sparrow Number Two, the more openly hostile and territorial Johnny Depp clone:

• Because the magazine biz definitely needs another highbrow literary magazine for New Yorkers, the Reading Room re-launches tonight with a ritzy party. Readings by Frank McCourt and Jerry Stiller. The Cervantes Institute, 211 East 49th St., 7 pm.
• Gomez hits Webster Hall, bringing their psychedelic performance for a happily baked crowd. [flavorpill]
• Tonight is the Summer Solstice, which the Jewish Community Center has apparently kidnapped from the pagans in the fight for Random Holiday Hegemony. Also, you don't see as many pagans as you used to. [Upcoming]

It's no easy task getting inside the mind of your average, U.S.-loathing Islamic militant, much less talking them out of their missions of destruction. Newsweek.com reports that an LA-based production company, funded by a shadowy cabal of anonymous "mystery donors," has taken the somewhat counterintuitive route of producing a slick, Hollywood-style PSA that hopes to do just that. Shot in downtown LA, and intended for broadcast on Iraqi TV, the spot's producers hope its fancy, bullet-time effects will wow potential suicide bombers out of going through with their assignments:

Having exhausted virtually every personality archetype around which to build an hour of televised domestic disintegration, the producers of Trading Spouses are now turning to the heretofore untapped, stereotype-rich subculture of nerdy college professors. InsideHigherEd.com, a website for the tweed-and-corduroy set, will not submit without a fight, however:

• Pat Benatar's comeback will not be ignored; she hits you with her best (only) shot tonight at Hammerstein Ballroom. [Prefix]
• Since gossip writers clearly need an ego boost these days, head over to Bubble Lounge for a reading with Deborah Schoeneman and Ian Spiegelman. Free champagne, and you have a few free hours to kill until the Angelina/Anderson interview. [Paper]
• Midsummer Night Swing takes over the plaza at Lincoln Center for an evening of outdoor dancing. Has this space become ground zero for public displays of foolishness? [Upcoming]

• Still feeling the Father's Day spirit? It's OK, we know you forgot to call. Pick up the phone and then, for good measure, catch the second-to-last performance of "Assisted Living," the one-man show from Sunday Styles columnist Bob Morris, about helping his 80-year-old father in the dating game. [DLounge]
• "Spasticity" is apparently a big part of tonight's dance performance over the FDR, which leaves us wondering why we weren't invited to participate. [flavorpill]
• Bryant Park's summer slew of free movies begins tonight with Hitchcock's The Birds. Enjoy some fresh air without the risk of a ridiculous sunburn. [WUNYC]

Friday:
• Only Human does the Guess Who's Coming to Dinner-thing, but with a Spanish/Jewish/Palestinian twist. Hey, it's the 90s. [flavorpill]
• ABBA may be dead, but their music lives on at junior-high slumber parties. Also, at tonight's Loser's Lounge tribute. [Prefix]

The LAT approached Peter Billingsley—the irrepressible, Red Ryder BB Gun-coveting scamp Ralphie from A Christmas Story—to find out how he managed to bypass the dark paths trod by so many of his young actor peers, and instead carve out for himself a successful career as a movie producer. Yes, in just five easy steps, you too can circumvent an adulthood doomed to crystal meth-fueled dry cleaner hold-ups, and achieve your former child star potential:

• Ed Halter hosts a shindig for his new book, From Sun Tzu to Xbox: War and Video Games. Technically it's a literary event, so your girlfriend can't yell at you. [Rhizome]
• "Italo-disco-influenced synthery" and a boat? Who cares what the first part means — all that matters is you cruising around the island. Check out the Juan Maclean tonight and get your sea legs. [flavorpill]
• 10 bucks says anyone who participates in tonight's game of Capture the Flag spent every game as a kid stuck in Jail. 15 bucks says most of them will still be similarly stuck tonight. [WUNYC]

Showing an uncultivated lack of reverential appreciation for Cannonball Run, Smokey and the Bandit, Without A Paddle, and the rest of Burt Reynolds' timeless oeuvre, the Jupiter Town Council is attempting to evict the Burt Reynolds & Friends Museum from the location it's held since 2002:

It's been too long since we've been moved enough to pass along one of Hollywood Momentum's "Screamers," those semi-outraged tales of assistant woe meant to galvanize the entire call-rolling class into rising up and finally overthrowing their better-paid tormentors in a bloody putsch. Today's installment, however, made the cut, if only because of its logline-esque concision:

• Mukund Rao and Blue Note's Amos Lee strum a few tunes tonight at Freddy's Backroom in Brooklyn. Someone you've actually heard of — not bad for a dive bar on Wednesday. [Freddy's]
• The City Council exposes itself to sunlight long enough to pretend it cares about the environment. Get your crunchy on tonight at Stuyvesant Cove Park for the panel discussion "City Council and the Greening of NYC." [Solar1]
• The O Brother, Where Are Thou soundtrack may be the only bluegrass you've ever heard, but you liked it nonetheless. Ralph Stanley of such fame plays tonight, for free, at Rockefeller Park. [flavorpill]

It was with great concern that we read about Jerry Lewis' latest health complication, a heart attack occurring on Sunday characterized by his reps as "mild." The accompanying photograph on Access Hollywood's website immediately put us at ease, however, reminding us of happier, healthier times, when Lewis delighted millions as The Fumbling Zombie, pictured here in the classic scene in which a frightened storekeep blows his head off with a shotgun, only to have it replaced by another.