Monday Essentials: 'Let's Go to the Rat'

Let's Go to the Rat! Documentary Film Benefit Concert
The documentary Let's Go to the Rat! is about the Rathskeller, known as "the Rat," a Kenmore Square music club that hosted bands like the Pixies, the Talking Heads, the Ramones and the Police during the 1970s, '80s and '90s. Johnny D's is hosting a benefit concert for the documentary on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. Six bands who played "the Rat" will be performing.

The Art Forger
Somerville Reads, a literacy program, has selected The Art Forger, a New York Times bestselling thriller by a local author about the Isabella Stewart Gardner art heist, as its 2013 "One City, One Book" read. The author, B. A. Shapiro, will be at the Somerville Public Library on Sept. 18 at 7 p.m. to talk about the book. That gives you less than a month to read it. You can register for the author talk here, and visit the library to get your hands on the book.

Flatbread Fundraiser for Boston Food Justice and Clarendon Hill Church
Eat pizza at Flatbread Pizza at Sacco's Bowl Haven Tuesday to benefit the Clarendon Hill Presbyterian Church and the Boston Food Justice Young Adult Volunteer program.

SomerMovie Fest
The last in Somerville's series of outdoor movies screens Thursday at Seven Hills Park. It's a viewers choice movie, so you'll have to wait to see what it is. It screens just after sunset, which is at 7:23 p.m. on Thursday.

SomerPlay
Looking ahead to Sunday, Sept. 1, there's a chance for kids to play outdoors in the streets with the Highland Avenue and Josephine Avenue SomerPlay events. They start at 2:30 p.m.