Admittedly, we were disappointed when we heard Christopher Hitchens had to cancel his sold-out talk with "Too Beautiful to Live"’s Luke Burbank tonight at Town Hall. What were those "unavoidable circumstances"? World Cup tickets? Had bad clams in Raleigh, NC? The Vanity Fair contributor and author of God Is Not Great and new memoir Hitch-22 (out this month) hopes to reschedule, but in the meantime, Town Hall invites anyone with tickets to see Hitchens to attend a lecture with Nicholas Carr tonight at 7:30 instead. Free of charge. Just show up with your ticket or ticket confirmation.

Carr, a writer for the Atlantic and author of Is Google Making Us Stoopid?, continues his war on the World Wide Web with his new book, The Shallows, arguing that the "Internet is rerouting our neural pathways, and its rapid proliferation brings unintended intellectual and social consequences." In this day, in this town, that’s a testier argument than "There is no God," so Carr’s sure to fire up the audience as well as the world’s most famous atheist.

On Thursday at 7:30pm, TED keynote speaker Clay Shirky offers a counterpoint to Carr, discussing "technology’s transition from passive delivery system to active collaboration with humans." Tickets are $5 on brownpapertickets.com.

Brown Paper Tickets will also issue full refunds to Hitchens ticketholders who paid by credit card. Call 800-838-3006 with any questions.