Hey Millsaps! I hope everyone had a fun spring break, and got a lot of sun, sand, and maybe even sangria. At this point in the semester, you’re either stuck studying for comps all day in your room, stuck doing midterms in your room all day, or “stuck” watching Netflix in your room all day. Get out right now and get some fresh air. Right now. And by right now, I mean this weekend. I’ve picked out some great events that are perfect for taking a brief break from your grind.

Friday

DJ Jonasty and DJ Young Venom’s Bogus ’90s Party
Where:  Hal & Mal’s
When: 9 p.m.
Price: $10
Why: Because you say you’re there for the dope R&B & the Sega Saturn, but secretly you just want to  get silly and dance to Hanson’s “MmmBop.”

Offbeat’s owner and resident DJ is going to be playing all the hits, misses, and weird boy band songs of the ‘90s all night at Hal & Mal’s alongside DJ Jonasty, and it’s going to be fantastic. All you have to do is dress up from two decades ago. (Yeah, the ‘90s were two decades ago, I know.) There will be door prizes from Offbeat for all attendees, and a Sega Saturn gamestation table set up for the nerds at the party. I honestly was focusing on not peeing myself for most of the ‘90s, so I have no idea what the cool thing to say back then was, but I’m sure this event will be cowabunga or radical or whatever the correct slang was. All that matters is that I can listen to this while dressed in overalls, and finally no one can judge me.

Tosca
Where: Madison Square Center for the Arts, Madison, Mississippi
When: 7:30 p.m.
Price:  $45, but you get two free tickets if you buy two!
Why: Because you absolutely do not want to go to the ‘90’s night, and are weirdly into romances featuring evil policemen and Napoleonic France. (If you don’t like opera, pretend it’s Les Miz. If you don’t like Les Miz, you should probably just go to that ‘90s party after all.)

Tosca is exactly what I want in an opera: torture, murder, sex, and everyone is crying and wants to die. It’s like if Taking Back Sunday was French, and way more political. (Tosca’s sick drop in 1900 was actually delayed because everyone thought it would incite riots or protests.)  Tosca, written by Giacomo Puccini (he also wrote La Boheme, aka what RENT is based off of), details the tragedy of mega babe singer Floria Tosca and all the bad things love brings upon you. I’m being flippant, but in all seriousness, this is a really cool opportunity to check out an opera. It’ll be playing for one night only, and boasts a really talented cast and a really technically proficient theater company.

Saturday
A Day at the Museum w/ Tougaloo
When: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Where: Smith Robertson Museum and Cultural Center
Price: $12 for students, $25 for regular admission
Why: The proceeds from this event go to Tougaloo College’s scholarship fund for its students, and there will be jazz shows and local chefs cooking tasty food all day there. Also you can’t live in Jackson and not go to the Smith Robertson Museum at least once, that’s crazy talk.

Tougaloo College is hosting a fundraiser for its scholarship fund! Come give back to fellow college students and enjoy a fun day at the Smith Robertson Museum! The Smith Robertson Museum is a museum dedicated to African American history in Mississippi and it’s a really powerful and well-curated space. The museum contains so much Jackson history, including an excellent exhibit on Farish Street.

Della Mae
When: 9 p.m.
Where: Duling Hall
Price:  $5 in advance, $10 at the door, and all patrons under 21 are charged a $3 surcharge.
Why: It’s an all-girl folk band! These women also just spent 43 days traveling to Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan to collaborate with local artists, so they are already infinitely more impressive than you are.

Della Mae is such a good folk/country band. They make you so excited you kind of want to smash a whiskey bottle on the floor and get crunk, but also kind of like you want to destroy the patriarchy while building a house with your true love. (In a white dress. While Della Mae plays. There’s a horse.)  Don’t miss this show, all these ladies are radical.