Independent Movements: Fourth of July Events

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THE MAIN ATTRACTION on the Fourth of July is the most obvious one: Saturday night's fireworks on the Mall. You knew about those; they're hard to miss.

The snapping, crackling and popping usually starts at around 9:15 p.m., so make sure you're someplace — on the Mall, on a roof deck, plopped down in front of the tube — where you can ooh and aah to your heart's content.

But while pulse-pounding 'splosions might satisfy your inner Michael Bay for an evening, they don't provide an entire three-day weekend's worth of entertainment. So here are a few events and destinations that'll help spangle your stars.

FRIDAY NIGHT:
The Blisspop Summer Extravaganza at the 9:30 Club — at which you can be yoked by the tyrannical beats of Tittsworth, Will Eastman, Dmerit and more — is the only place to be. Read more about the show here.

If a more low-key experience is more your speed, go for Jazz in the Sculpture Garden at 5 p.m. or go see a free outdoor screening of "Top Gun" at Gateway Park in Rosslyn. Maverick, Goose and the gang take off at dusk.

SATURDAY:
If you want to watch the fireworks from the National Mall grounds, you should get there early to stake out a spot. The security checkpoints open at 10 a.m., and no alcohol is allowed in the gate. Don't forget that the Smithsonian Metro stop will be closed all day.

While you're there, you can check out the Folklife Festival, where exhibits and performances will focus on the United Kingdom nation of Wales, musicians from the U.S. and Latin America and the words and melodies of the African-American oral tradition.

When hunger strikes, there will be plenty of eats on hand, including Welsh cuisine, Central and South American offerings and American soul food, including barbequed chicken and Southern-style peach cobbler.

If you'd rather watch the fireworks from outside security gates, we recommend a trip to Eastern Market on Saturday. The newly re-opened farmer's market/bazaar is a D.C. staple, and there's no better time than Independence Day to remember some of the things you've always loved about D.C.

Like your meat-and-potatoes Fourth staples? Then here you go:
» The Independence Day Parade runs on Constitution Avenue between 7th and 17th streets NW. It starts at 11:45 a.m.
» The Capitol Fourth concert will take place, as always, on the Capitol lawn. It runs from 8 - 9:30 p.m. and will feature performances by Barry Manilow and Aretha Franklin, among others.

SUNDAY:
Sleep.

No? OK. It's been a hectic weekend, so you should hit up Politics and Prose to meet other exhausted-yet-cultured young people. Reif Larsen's first novel, "The Selected Works Of T.S. Spivet" is a strange intellectual road-trip book about a very precocious 12-year-old boy. Larsen will be reading from it and signing it at 3 p.m.

Want a little more action? The Source Festival continues Sunday night with mash-ups, in which actors, writers and directors are set up with each other to create new, weird performance pieces.

If anything involving words is too much for your fried brain, loosen up in silence with Yoga in the Park, a free series in Meridian Hill Park held every summer Sunday at 5 p.m. Bring a mat — but know that it will get dirty — and try to get a spot that's not on a vicious incline.

» Jazz in the Sculpture Garden, National Gallery of Art, 6th Street & Constitution Avenue NW; Fridays all summer, 5 p.m., free; 202-842-6799. (Archives-Navy Memorial)
» "Weird Science," Gateway Park, 1300 Lee Highway, Arlington; Fri., May 8, dusk, free; 703-247-9290. (Rosslyn)
» Folklife Festival, National Mall between the U.S. Capitol and the Washington Monument; through July 5, free; 202-633-1000. (Federal Triangle)
» Reif Larsen, Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW; Sun., July 5, 3 p.m., free; 202-364-1919, Politics-prose.com. (Van Ness)
» Source Festival, Source Theatre, 1835 14th St. NW; through July 12, $18; 202-204-7800, sourcedc.org. (U St.-Cardozo)
» Yoga in the Park, Meridian Hill Park at 15th St. and Chapin St. NW, Sundays through August, 5 p.m.-6:30 p.m., free. (U St.-Cardozo)

Photos by Jahi Chikwendiu and Kevin Clark/The Washington Post