WE LOVE SCIENTIST AND ARTIST Bulent Atalay not because he has a kickin' name, or that he can still rock a fedora in blazing Mediterranean heat — though that's cool, too (see right).

No, we love Atalay because the guy spends his time writing about Leonard Da Vinci, the King Dude of The Dudes.

Plus, Atalay gets to do all his research in Italy, our favorite bella country, which should go just ahead and send a jet for us right now.

But we digress.

Tonight at Natty Geo's Grosvenor Auditorium, Our Kid Atalay will discuss his new book, "Leonardo's Universe," which covers everything from The Dude's mathematical genius and unmatched artistic skills to his amazing ability to predict future inventions — ones so advanced that they were not able to be created for hundreds of years.

Atalay's latest look at Leonardo follows "Math and the Mona Lisa: The Art and Science of Leonardo Da Vinci." So like we said: Ol' Bulent, probably more than anyone else, knows how to crack Da Vinci's code.

» National Geographic, Grosvenor Auditorium, 1600 M St. NW; Tue., 7:30 p.m., $18; 202-857-7700. (Farragut North)

WANT TO KNOW why so many Chinese musicians have perfect pitch? Or how self-deception could be an adaptive trait? Or whether your Iron Maiden tattoo needs a numerical edit?

Only one show will take you there.

Now concluding its brief fourth season, the recurring miniseries WNYC's "Radio Lab" is the brainchild of sonic innovator Jad Abumrad. His highly processed storytelling has yielded the first genuinely distinctive public-radio template since "This American Life."

Thursday, he and esteemed science journalist Robert Krulwich will show a Koshland crowd how they make the magic happen.

» EXPRESS: Your narrative style involves a lot of looping, repetition, multiple voices, etc. It can be pretty jarring.
» ABUMRAD: We get a lot of nastygrams on the e-mail from people who don't like the style. They're, like [adopting kvetchy elderly voice], "Why the noises? Stop stuttering! Why do the people repeat themselves?"

Continue Reading "Electromagnetism: 'Radio Lab'" »

AS A PHOTOGRAPHER FOR U.S. News & World Report, Jim Lo Scalzo has shot everywhere, from rural Texas to Iraq to Antarctica, and in his memoir, "Evidence of My Existence," he brings his photographs to life.

Tonight at the Corcoran, Lo Scalzo discusses his fondness of exploration (he's a self-proclaimed "travel addict") and photography as a means by which to get his fix. He will also sign copies of his book after the talk.

» Corcoran Gallery of Art, 500 17th St. NW; Wed., 7 p.m., $10; 202-639-1700. (Farragut North)

WHEN YOUR OPTIONS ARE a seat on the ground or, well, a seat on the ground, then a natural chair formed from petrified sand dunes suddenly sounds pretty comfortable.

At least it did 12,000 years ago.

When Albert Ammerman — a seasoned archaeologist and professor of humanities at Colgate University — traveled to Cyprus in 2003 to search for evidence of early seafaring peoples, his peers thought that he was making a bad career move. Prior excavations hadn't turned up much of anything.

"A lot of people thought I was crazy. It was kind of risky to go out and do something that nobody else could do," said the professor. "However, we had the good fortune to look in the right place."

Continue Reading "Sitting on a Beach: Archaeologist Albert Ammerman" »

WHEN HE’S NOT FOOLING AROUND, Brian Malow shoots bugs. Really — his photos have appeared in Natural History and the Canadian Journal of Arthropod Identification. When he is fooling around, Malow drops science, bringing stage-honed stand-up chops to the elucidation of the natural world. The Koshland Science Museum has already hosted an evening of "Rational Comedy for an Irrational Planet" and another on the lighter side of infectious disease. On Thursday, Malow returns with "The Final Frontier?," exploring everything from time travel to creatures so hardy they're dubbed "extremophiles."

» EXPRESS: How does one become a science comedian?
» MALOW: I went to a magnet school for bipolar students.

» EXPRESS: Seriously, any real credentials?
» MALOW: I made a minor discovery ... a picture I took here in San Francisco of a certain species of fly [Myatropha florea]. ... Well, it seems it's the first proof of its existence in the Nearctic. Of course, I took the picture in Golden Gate Park, so maybe the fly was a tourist.

» EXPRESS: You got your start in nightclubs, right?
» MALOW: I would say that I haven't always been a comic. In fact, I used to be an astronomer, but I got stuck on the day shift — which sucks. You don't make any of the big discoveries.

Continue Reading "Science Is Comedy: Brian Malow" »

RICHIE ROBERTS SAYS he never thought Hollywood would make a movie out of his life.

Not even when as a New Jersey policeman he found a large sum of unmarked bills and turned it in. Not when, as part of the Essex County prosecutor's office, he helped bring down Frank Lucas, one of America's most powerful drug dealers, in the 1970s. And not when he later became friends with Lucas, became the godfather to Lucas' son, Ray, and paid for the child to go to Catholic school.

"I knew [my life] was crazy," Roberts says. "I wanted it to be crazy. I enjoyed the adrenaline rush. I enjoyed being on the edge. I always did. But I never for a second pictured anything about a movie."

And even since Ridley Scott's film "American Gangster" — where former cop is portrayed by Academy Award winner Russell Crowe — has grossed well more than $100 million and is now out on DVD, Roberts says his life hasn't changed much at all.

Roberts is still a practicing lawyer, although he's been a defense attorney for a couple decades now. He still sees Ray Lucas every week, even when his relationship with Ray's father turns sour, as it sometimes does. "Since the movie started, he kind of morphed back into Frank Lucas the drug lord," Roberts says. "And I got that old narc feeling and I thought to myself, 'I should have put this guy away for good.' "

And Roberts still thinks of Lucas as a drug dealer, no matter how close he gets to Ray. He says this criminal is not a man to be glorified — which is a tough to avoid when someone as charismatic as Denzel Washington portrays the gangster on film — because, Roberts argues, Frank Lucas killed more black people with his drugs than the KKK ever did.

For years, Roberts has given talks that cover why there will likely never be another drug dealer as powerful as Lucas, his relationship with the criminal kingpin, the drug game in the 1970s, his fear of public speaking and his Jewish background. On Monday night, Roberts will be at the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue to talk about some of those topics — but Express got to him first.

Continue Reading "Gangsta Rap: Richie Roberts on 'American Gangster'" »

THE DOCUMENTARY FILM "Africa Unite" isn't yet another recycled Bob Marley artifact trotted out to celebrate an anniversary and cash more checks.

While the movie covers the giant concert the Marley family held in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa in 2005 to celebrate what would have been Papa Bob's 60th birthday, the primary point of the film is much larger, according to eldest son Ziggy Marley.

"I know [my father] would have said, 'It's not about my 60th birthday; it's about the unity of Africa.' This is the more important message.'"

"Africa Unite," which makes its D.C. debut on Saturday, documents the coming together of people from around the world to share ideas, cultures and good vibes against the backdrop of a family-and-friends concert that brings the entire Marley clan together.

But the most powerful aspects come from the historical footage that displays the dehumanizing colonialization of Africa and Jamaica.

Continue Reading "Continent Divided: 'Africa Unite'" »

NOTHING SAYS "I LOVE YOU" like an evening of lutes, citoles and courtly verse — at least according to the Folger Consort.

This weekend, the Folger Shakespeare Library's resident early music ensemble will perform a selection of Medieval lyric song in honor of Valentine's Day. However, if you really want to impress your beloved, it helps to know your Galician from your Occitan — thus, it's worth attending Creative Director Robert Eisenstein's informative pre-performance seminar on Feb. 13.

"I hesitate to call it a seminar," said Eisenstein. "Instead, I'd call it a it a multimedia infomercial. There will be a digital slide show with the manuscripts, we'll play recordings of the songs — it's a chance to experience the music we're going to be playing in a little more detail."

Continue Reading "Seven Songs of Love: Martin Codax & the Folger" »

YOU PROBABLY ALREADY KNOW that Dave Barry can write funny.

After all, the man's long-running Miami Herald humor column was syndicated in hundreds of papers and was even popular enough to spawn a moderately successful CBS sitcom "Dave's World"; Barry's written dozens of books — most of which have his name in their title and which have collectively sold millions of copies; he's been widely anthologized in collections such as "The Best American Sports Writing" and "Pirattitude!"; and he collected a Pulitzer Prize "for his consistently effective use of humor as a device for presenting fresh insights into serious concerns."

But before you shell out between $27 and $125 to spend "An Evening With Dave Barry," at George Washington University's Lisner Auditorium on Wednesday, you may wonder whether Dave Barry can talk funny.

Of course he can — the man's hilarious.

But we don't want to unduly influence you. So, in the interest of journalistic objectivity, we'll just offer our recent conversation with Barry and let you decide for yourself.

Continue Reading "Talking Funny: Dave Barry" »

"I WANTED TO WRITE the best possible account of Picasso's art and life, taking into account what Picasso always told me: His work was his diary," said John Richardson of the third volume of his monumental "A Life of Picasso."

The 500-page tome, subtitled "The Triumphant Years, 1917-1932," exhaustively covers the great artist's travels, sex life and friendships with Gertrude Stein, Guillaume Apollinaire, Jean Cocteau, Igor Stravinsky, et al. Richardson's greatest strength, however, is probably the careful, accessible way he analyzes Picasso's prodigious output and roots the artist's "diary" in his daily life. The book is rife with examples of Picasso's work and even includes some 50 pages of color reproductions.

Richardson, set to sign copies of his book and discuss Picasso with the Corcoran's director and president, Paul Greenhalgh, on Monday, spoke with Express about Picasso's relationship with Salvador Dali, the quality of the work he did as an old man and the importance of Picasso's love life to his art.

» EXPRESS: Talk about the last time you saw Pablo Picasso.
» RICHARDSON: Without looking at old diaries, I can't tell you. I saw him all through the late '50s and early '60s. Then I saw him one time later — it must have been the mid-'60s.

» EXPRESS: I love the story about the paintings and the caviar he brought when he came to your house for dinner.
» RICHARDSON:Drawings. God knows Picasso was generous, but the paintings were worth a huge amount of money. But he would bring drawings or prints or little ceramics he made. Then one time he said, "The price of these things is going through the roof! It's much cheaper to bring you a kilo of caviar." I think he only did that once, then went back to bringing drawings or whatever. He had a marvelous sense of humor. He was always full of surprises.

Continue Reading "Beyond Cubism: 'A Life of Picasso'" »