Jeffrey Sarmiento // Encylcopædia (Enameled and cast glass) // photo credit: Kent Rogowski

the only terrible thing about tonight is choosing between so many great options. Here are a few of them:

• McLeod Residence opens a new show called “the more you know” with a series of exhibits loosely connected by the back-to-school season: Jeff Bender’s lightbox and small scale photographs span conventional celebrity portraits and revealing meta-commentary on popular imagemaking, Jeffrey Sarmiento’s Encyclopædia series finds words, culture, and memory dreamily and unconventionally fused into beautiful glass books, and Jason Huntley’s cereal mosaic of Michael Jackson must be seen in person to be fully appreciated. reception, 6-9 pm [mcleod]
• With each album, Animal Collective forces questions like: Is this music? Is this noise? Are there deep levels of organization in this freewheeling chaos? When, in the whirling “Fireworks” the lyrics turn to fleeting existential questions like “how’s your mood in that song? when it passes right by me it’s behind me, now it’s gone” I think that the answers are yes, yes, and yes. But in the end, I’m not sure that the answers particularly matter because the songs and the performances are reliably and invigoratingly good. $20, 8pm[neumos]
• The Stranger canonizes a fifth crop of local geniuses with a party at the Central Library. Go for the peoplewatching, stay for the Blow, Khaela Maricich’s effective performance art / bedroom dance-infused monologue, in the form of wondeous pop-folk-electronica. free, 9:30, SPL [stranger]
• With all of this happening, you can be forgiven for electing to hold off on seeing the New Pornographers (rumored to be at full touring strength — a.k.a. Neko Case will be there?) and Lavender Diamond at Saturday’s all-ages show instead. [showbox]