The hybrid Hugo Literary Series concludes with a typically eccentric mash-up of literary and performing artists. The topic is “Laws of Attraction,” which ought to accommodate the broad range of talents on display. Their assignment is to create new work in the field of what might be called non-Newtonian physics—why things, and people, come together or are mutually repelled. Meaning unmatched socks, ex-spouses, anchovies and lox, childhood sweethearts, cats and dogs, dailies and alt-weeklies, Superman and kryptonite, rum and Coke…any possible combination of likely or unlikely elements. Eminent visiting essayist Phillip Lopate will read his response, based on his four decades of reporting on the arts and culture of New York (often mining his own life for material). He joins locals Marya Sea Kaminski (the actress recently acclaimed in the title role in Seattle Shakespeare Co.’s Electra), band Happy Hour Hero (Strength in Numbers), and poet Emily Warn (The Leaf Path). Even if you don’t like the results, that may prove their theses. (Info: 322-7030 and hugohouse.org.) T. BOND

Fri., March 19, 7:30 p.m., 2010