>> Akron/Family's folk-influenced jams will pour out of the Rock and Roll Hotel tonight, with Greg Davies, Raleigh's Megafaun, and Stamen and Pistils. $12, 8 p.m. doors.

>> The awards have already been announced, so it's a good time to check out the end of the D.C. Shorts Film Festival now that they're offering one of several "Best-Of" collections screening at 10 p.m. tonight -- odds are good you won't have to sit through any stinkers. Schedule and tickets here, $12, at the Landmark E Street Cinemas, presented in HD.

>> Ever watched a White House Press briefing and been moved to throw food at the TV screen? Tony Snow, Joseph Lockhart, Marlin Fitzwater, and Joseph Powell, all former White House press secretaries, will be on hand tonight at the U.S. Dept. of Interior building, if you're willing to shell out $40 to hear them chat with reporter Kenneth Walsh in "An Evening With the Presidential Press Secretaries." Bring tomatoes accordingly. Info over here, 6:45 p.m.

>> Those interested in the future of America's, and D.C.'s, public schools might want to head over to the Historic Sixth and I Synagogue Politics and Prose to hear educator and activist Jonathan Kozol read from Letters to a Young Teacher, an examination of what's gone wrong with No Child Left Behind-style principles in education through the eyes of a first grade teacher at an inner-city school in Boston. 7 p.m., sponsored by Politics and Prose.

Photo by Sexy Fitsum