WOOOOOOO 4th of July! But just because there's a workday sandwiched in there doesn't mean the party has to stop. Dip in to any of these five expertly-chosen weekend festivities, or just sit in your backyard and flip those extra burgers you've got left over. A sweet deal regardless!

10th Annual Temescal Street Fair
It’s appropriate that the events category on the Temescal District website is called “Hip Happenings.” It gets at why Temescal is equal parts loved and deplored, and why its many great offerings in terms of food, drink, and entertainment will usually come recommended with the scarce hint of an eye roll. But regardless of all that, Temescal knows how to do Temescal, and it’s officially the time of year to celebrate that. Join them this Sunday on Telegraph Ave. between 42nd and 51st St. for the 10th Annual Temescal Street Fair, featuring a kids’ stage with a lineup of performances, over 150 craft booths, lots of live music, and food and drinks from Juhu Beach Club, Lanesplitter, La Calaca Loca, The Avenue, and Barlata. What started as a little street festival is, objectively, not so little anymore. 12-6 p.m., free. TemescalDistrict.org/Hip_Happenings— Azeen Ghorayshi

Queer Rebels of the Harlem Renaissance
The Queer Rebels are an arts production company that looks to the past as a way to better inform the future. Nowhere do they do that better than at their annual arts showcase, Queer Rebels of the Harlem Renaissance. The event continues this year with its fourth annual showcase, the first to include Oakland in part of its program. On Saturday and Sunday, join the Queer Rebels at the African American Art & Culture Complex (762 Fulton St., San Francisco) for a night of readings, blues, poetry, theater, and more from some of the Bay Area’s most trailblazing artists and performers. On Monday, head over to the New Parkway Theater for a screening of B.D. Women, a 1994 film that weaves together clips of black lesbians talking candidly about their sexual and racial identities as well as a dramatized love story set, perfectly enough, in the Harlem Renaissance.12:30 p.m., $6-$10. QueerRebels.com — Azeen Ghorayshi

Beast Crawl
Beast Crawl is somewhere between a literary-minded pub crawl and an unusually casual, extra-boozy reading series — a free-form, free-of-charge afternoon festival consisting of three hour-long sessions (plus a half-hour break between each one, as well as an afterparty), each of which offers a choice of nine to eleven different readings at venues scattered through Uptown Oakland. The first-ever Beast Crawl ended up drawing more than 1,000 people to see 125 writers at 26 venues over the course of three and a half hours, and this year's iteration, which happens Saturday, July 6, looks to be even bigger, with 140 writers, 31 readings, and 26 venues. 5 p.m., free. BeastCrawl.Weebly.com

Next Door
Chef Sharon Lorraine Anderson calls her approach "comfort food without borders," the idea being that even while the foods people find comforting — that remind them of Grandma's cooking or of their hometown — are culturally specific, there's no reason that Persian-style chicken wings and Italian-American lasagna shouldn't coexist at one restaurant. Still, the heart and soul of Anderson's restaurant, Next Door, still lie in the traditional dishes of the American South: Complimentary cornbread arrives at the table warm and only slightly sweet at the crisp edges. A thick, cider-brined pork chop — nicely charred and served in a pool o fits own jus — comes with stewed greens and airy, decadent mashed sweet potatoes. The menu also features buttermilk-fried chicken, creamy grits, and best of all, a smooth, showstopping butterscotch custard that's topped with candied pecans and intensely caramel-y salted caramel sauce. NextDoorBerkeley.com — Luke Tsai

Ships in the Night
We don't even need to convince you on this one. It's this Saturday at the New Parish. Dress cute. Dance to "Pony". Drink too many vodka Red Bulls. Live. Laugh. Love.

Plus...
Get your cheapskate on:
This is how much we love you guys: Here are our searchable listings of every single free event happening in the East Bay this weekend.

Feed Us: Got any East Bay news, events, video, or miscellany we should know about? Holler at us at Azeen.Ghorayshi@EastBayExpress.com.