Mon. Jan. 21

What to do on MLK day? If it were Presidents Day, you'd go shopping for cars, just like our early presidents intended, despite the auto's lack of invention. They were forward thinkers, those guys, prescient. We know there are sales marking Martin Luther King, Jr., too and you can even buy a Jeep - one of them dealers, we forget which - and get it for free if it snows 8 or more inches in Boston April 1. That's the MLK spirit! Or you could celebrate with a free Open House, at the Museum of Fine Arts Mon. Jan. 21, from 10 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. (The MFA likes doing these holiday/open house gigs - it's a win-win.) Monday's activities include two highly anticipated performances by Kendrick Oliver and the New Life Jazz Orchestra (big band music at 11 a.m. and 3:30 p.m.) and two screening of short films on power and social justice (1 and 2 p.m. at the Remis Auditorium), and artmaking for families.  In addition, all exhibitions will be free, including Symbols of Power: Napoleon and the Art of the Empire Style, 1800-1815 (see already posted item). Members of the MFA’s Teen Arts Council—a group of teenagers engaged in a year-long apprenticeship—will give special tours of the exhibition Walk This Way, a treasure hunt through the galleries that pairs the MFA’s historic collection of shoes with Museum masterpieces.  Guided gallery tours will also be offered throughout the day and are available to those who are hearing impaired, blind, or have low vision. 

465 Huntington Ave., 617-369-3100 www.mfa.org