Our picks of this week's events

BALBOA PARK

Meat and potatoes

Ireland isn’t noted for its culinary prowess, and unless boiled potatoes and corned beef experience a renaissance, it doesn’t seem like traditional Irish cuisine will be making the cover of Bon Appetit any time soon. On the other hand, the region’s modern cuisine is said to be a bit more appetizing, but your enjoyment of it may depend on how many pre-meal pints you’ve consumed. Either way, Balboa Park’s Museum of Man’s Tower After Hours program is inviting local pubs and restaurants to bring their best drinks and delicacies to its “Luck of the Irish” celebration at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 28. The food and beverages will be accompanied by Celtic music and dancers, so be prepared to engage in some impromptu sing-alongs. $10 for members, $15 for students, $20 for everyone else. www.museumofman.org.

THEATER

Art and race

Mo`olelo Performing Arts Company is doing something a little different with its latest production, Permanent Collection, a play by Thomas Gibbons currently showing at The Tenth Avenue Theatre, 930 10th Ave., Downtown. After the performance at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 1, Mo`olelo will host a discussion that touches on the same issues the play touches on—race and the inclusion of African art at major museums. Derrick Cartwright, director of the San Diego Museum of Art; Vasundhara Prabu, SDMA educator and administrator; and Robert Pincus, San Diego Union-Tribune art critic, will lead the talk and discuss upcoming African-art exhibitions at the museum and two current Mo`olelo-sponsored exhibitions showing at Tenth Avenue Theatre and artist Mario Torero’s gallery. Check www.moolelo.net for the full list of upcoming post-performance discussions. 619-342-7395 or $25.

NIGHTLIFE

Dnce prty

San Diego’s Fieldtrip Collective claims to be “a group of artists, bands, DJs, promoters, photographers, journalists, designers and friends who are all down for the same cause.” While it’s difficult to tell exactly what that cause is, from the looks of things, it may simply be to throw all-out dance parties involving multimedia art and live music at some of the city’s hippest venues. Yeah, that sounds about right. At 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 28, Fieldtrip hosts a performance by Canadian electro-disco duo MSTRKRFT, along with DJ crews L.A. Riots and Shark Attack. The event will also feature a live mural wall painted by artists from across the country, including Exist 1981, Tocayo, SPRFKR and Nick McPherson. Fieldtrip has chosen the ultra-cool Hard Rock Hotel at 207 Fifth Ave. as the location for the party. www.myspace.com/fieldtripentertainment. $20.

BOOKS

On the up

Armando Rodriguez was the first Mexican secondary-education principal in San Diego and the second Mexican to be a college president in California, and he eventually ended up be a serving as an advisor to four U.S. presidents. That’s an impressive résumé, especially for someone who migrated to the U.S. in the 1920s without speaking a word of English. Rodriguez, who currently calls El Cajon his home, will tell you how he did it all in a luncheon talk and signing of his new biography, From the Barrio to Washington: An Educator’s Journey, at the Catfish Club, held at the San Diego Hall of Champions in Balboa Park from noon to 1:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 29. RSVP at info@catfishclub.net. $25 includes lunch.

SPECIAL EVENTS

The Factory

Back in the late ’60s, The Factory, Andy Warhol’s silkscreen studio, was the place to be. Artists, New York socialites and even crazed writers like Valerie Solanas (who took a shot at Warhol at The Factory in 1968) frequented the studio for its famous parties and surreal scene. From 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. Saturday, March 1, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego will turn its downtown galleries at 1100 Kettner Blvd. into a Factory-esque setting that will set the stage for the first-ever MCASD Live event featuring indie rockers Autolux, Tijuana’s avant-garde performer Madame Ur and Sus Hombres, as well as artists Perry Vasquez, Exist 1981, filmmaker Nathan Gulick (who’ll make screen tests similar to Warhol’s weird experiments in film), live video projections by Pragma and DJ sets by Eddie Turbo, Ikah Love, Dimitri, AStronauta Jackson and Dubbadeez. The $50 tickets ($75 at the door) will go toward the museum’s exhibition and education programs. RSVP to Katie Oram at 858-454-3541 x444 or koram@mcasd.org.

ART

Rocktography

They bother you at rock shows with their fancy equipment and sense of entitlement—“Excuse me,” they say, “but I’ve gotta get in here for this shot.” Yep, rock photographers can be annoying, but in the final analysis, we’re all happy they do what they do. From 4 to 7 p.m. Saturday, March 1, Tecolote Guitar Works (1231 Morena Blvd. in Bay Park) will celebrate the music-themed photos of Southern Californians, including Molly Kirby, Michael Oletta, Gary Payne and Robert Sturman. And, of course, there’ll be live music and refreshments to help recreate the rock ’n’ roll vibe. www.tecoloteguitarworks.com or 619-276-1677.

The prettier side: The beaches of Oceanside are beautiful, but just a few blocks inland is a piece of manmade beauty that could almost compete with the blue waves and smooth sand—the Oceanside Museum of Art has officially added 16,000 square feet of Frederick Fisher-designed modernistic architecture to its already impressive Irving Gill-designed main gallery. To celebrate the new space, the museum will host an open house in the new Central Pavilion, 704 Pier View Way, from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday, March 2. On view on the new gallery walls will be Masterpieces of San Diego Painting: Fifty Works from Fifty Years, 1900-1950, an exhibition that shows off the museum’s mission, which is a little different than most big-time museums because of the focus on regional art. 760-721-2787 or www.oma-online.org.