Night+Day

monday
july 7
A Message From You, Rudy World champion figure skating medalist Rudy Galindo will be describing his harrowing ascent from the working-class San Jose neighborhood of his youth to the expensive, heartbreaking, kneecap-busting arena of world-class competitive skating when he signs and discusses copies of his book Icebreaker at a local in-store promotion. Galindo's familiarity with punishing workouts has evidently served him well on this national book tour, which he wraps up with a few local appearances. Although Icebreaker is essentially an autobiography, Galindo didn't actually write it; he entrusted that job to Eric Marcus, a sort of post-medal scribe-for-hire who did as much for Olympic diver Greg Louganis with Breaking the Surface, which leads one to wonder: Can a Galindo movie-of-the-week be far behind? The signing begins at 6:30 p.m. at A Different Light Bookstore, 489 Castro, S.F. Admission is free; call 431-0891.

tuesday
july 8
Brown Bag Broadway A bunch of actors gather in their favorite pub to swap Broadway experiences in John Guare's The New York Actor, which plays with David Ives' Degas C'est Moi, the story of an unemployed dreamer who decides to kill time by pretending he's the French painter. The double-header kicks off the Center for Theater Arts' "Summer Season of Comedy," a lunchtime series that continues with Woody Allen's Death (July 22-25) and concludes with Christopher Durang's The Actor's Nightmare (Aug. 5-8), about the thespian equivalent to naked public speaking. Degas and Actor open at noon (and continue through Friday) in Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Berkeley campus. Admission is $4-6; call (510) 642-9925.