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ONGOING: The Chinese emperor Qin Shihuangdi had thousands of life-sized clay figures sculpted to accompany him to the grave — archers, acrobats, you name it.
The rock stars of his tomb, though, are the warriors, and you can see 15 of them in the exhibit "Terra Cotta Warriors: Guardians of China's First Emperor," which opened Thursday.
» National Geographic Museum, 1145 17th St. NW; through March 31, $12, children $6; 202-857-7700, Nationalgeographic.com. (Farragut North)
Photo by Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post
WEDNESDAY: Today is Saint Patrick's Day, in case you forgot, and its status as a Wednesday prevents you from celebrating. Probably. Hey, who knows where you work.
Anyway, you can honor the Irish more soberly with Irish Book Day, wherein volunteers stand at your Metro stop and hand you copies of Irish literature for free. For a list of the stops they'll be at, visit Solasnua.org.
LIKE A LOT of comedians, Harland Williams does more than make wisecracks. But while you might expect the Canadian funnyman to appear in movies (like "Dumb and Dumber") and write joke books, he also does something completely unexpected: He writes books for children. Um, how'd that come about?
"I studied animation in college, and I just found the process so long and tedious," he explains. "I wanted to do illustrations where I could use my own imagination and not be part of an assembly line. I loved writing, so I just married the two. Writing imagination-filled stories with imagination-filled rhymes was just like bliss. I've written and illustrated, I believe, nine books now."
Don't expect anything kid-oriented when Williams steps back into the role of comedian for a four-night engagement at the DC Improv. But his being a children's author does inform his comedy, he says.
Continue Reading "Funnyman for the Whole Family: Harland Williams " »
FRIDAY: Tanya Tagaq turns the traditional art of throat singing on its, uh, head with her contemporary approach.
The native of Nunavut, Canada, began studying Inuit throat-singing only in high school but has gone on to modernize the form, collaborating with Bjork and Kronos Quartet in the process. She's at National Geographic Live on Friday.
» National Geographic, 1600 M St. NW; Fri., March 12, 7:30 p.m., $25; 202-857-7700. (Farragut North)
Photo courtesy Press Junkie PR
Editor's Note: This story originally ran on Feb. 11, but a snowstorm caused the Feb. 12 and 13 Al Green shows to be rescheduled. According to DAR Constitution Hall's Web site, tickets for Feb. 12's show will be honored March 12; tickets for Feb. 13's show will be honored March 13.
THERE SEEM TO be two very different sides of Al Green. There's Al Green the smooth soul singer, and there's Al Green the regular guy. One takes the stages to perform dazzling feats of falsetto acrobatics and throw roses into the audience for women to fight over, and the other takes the long trips to get himself to those shows and preaches as frequently as possible at his home church in Memphis.
Throughout his 40-year career, Green has had to repeatedly make a distinction between the two. Born in Arkansas but raised in Michigan, he spent his youth singing in family gospel groups, but was reportedly fired when his father caught him listening to Jackie "Mr. Excitement" Wilson. Teaming with producer "Papa" Willie Mitchell and Al Jackson Jr. (of Booker T. & the MGs fame), Green recorded a string of albums for the legendary Bluff City label Hi Records, which yielded such future karaoke standards as "Let's Stay Together," "I'm Still in Love With You," "Love & Happiness" and "Here I Am (Come and Take Me)."
Sadly, Mitchell passed away earlier this year while Green was touring in Australia. A notable trumpeter, bandleader and businessman in addition to one of the greatest soul producers to turn a knob, Mitchell "was just so fantastic," Green says of his old friend and collaborator. "He lived a good life. He knew what it was all about. He taught me. We have to go on and be thankful for the things he showed us and thankful for the time and all that, man, and keep on rockin' 'cause that's what he'd want us to do."
THIS WEEKEND: It's official: vaudeville is totally back.
Our evidence? Flip Orley, the comedian/hypnotist, is a sensation. And for good reason; he's very funny. He's not going to help you quit smoking, but he won't have to put you in a trance to get a laugh.
» DC Improv, 1140 Connecticut Ave. NW; through March 7, $15-$17; 202-296-7008. (Farragut North)
Photo courtesy Personal Publicity
JUST BECAUSE YOU know movies doesn't mean you know Mike Epps. At least, not his name.
A few years ago, at a screening for the 2007 film "Resident Evil: Extinction," two movie reviewers (older, white, female) sat in front of my friend, discussing how excited they were to catch Omar Epps in the flick. They praised his roles in "ER" and "House," but oops, their bad. Mike and Omar may be cousins, but they're not the same dude — Mike is distinctly, undeniably funnier, the kind of guy who has made the most of what Hollywood has thrown his way.
Whether he's providing comic relief in the zombie-heavy second and third "Resident Evil" films, holding his own alongside Martin Lawrence and Cedric the Entertainer in family-friendly flicks like "Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins" and "The Honeymooners," or being part of the highly entertaining identity mix-up in last year's "The Hangover," which made $467 million on a $35 million budget, Epps is inevitably the guy you immediately laugh at — even though you may first mistake him for his more dramatic relative.
And, yes, the films in which Epps is certainly the funniest — "Resident Evil: Apocalypse," "Resident Evil: Extinction" and "The Hangover" — are also the ones in which he's the only black guy onscreen, providing the most ridiculous (albeit true) observations.
BESIDES THE MANY festivals we in the Washington area are blessed with, our local silver screens will be bristling with individual gems. Sobering times, apparently, call for nonfiction, so expect a passel of earnest documentaries. But there's also action, animation and fictional crime to take us into the warm weather.
'NORTH FACE': CLIMB EVERY MOUNTAIN, OR ELSE
Mountains and Nazis? While it's based on a true story, this ain't "The Sound of Music." Two German climbers are "persuaded" by Nazi propagandists in 1936 to scale the impassable north face of the Eiger (of "Eiger Sanction" fame). It doesn't go well.
» Avalon, 5612 Connecticut Ave., NW; opens Feb. 26, $10.50; 202-966-6000.
'THE RED SHOES': ARCHERS AND ARCHES
Brit auteurs the Archers (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger) were already on the mark (sorry) with "Black Narcissus" when they hit the bull's-eye (sorry!) with this 1948 ballet-within-a-ballet tale. UCLA archivists spent three years restoring it with funding from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Nice to know the Golden Globes are good for something.
» National Gallery of Art, 4th Street & Constitution Avenue NW; March 14, 4:30 p.m., free; 202-842-6799. (Archives-Navy Memorial)
AISHA TYLER MAY be more recognized for her roles on shows like "24" and "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" than for her stand-up. But that doesn't deter the sometimes-actress from continuing to crack jokes. Instead, it encourages her to keep creating comedy that pushes both her own — and others' — boundaries.
"I've been doing it for 17 years now," Tyler says of her stand-up, which spurred a career that now includes acting, writing and directing.
"Stand-up and acting and writing, it's all married to each other — they're all fingers on a very malformed hand and they're all related. ... If you think you can do something, you might as well go for it."
And for Tyler, who will perform at the DC Improv this weekend, that balancing act has continued to pay off.
Continue Reading "She's Pretty Funny: Aisha Tyler, DC Improv" »
JUST HOW ECO-FRIENDLY is Mixt Greens, a salad shop import from the West Coast that opens its first D.C. location today? Manager Scott Myerson biked all the way here from San Francisco. That's probably the only appropriate way to travel to a place built entirely out of sustainably harvested and reclaimed materials, where nothing offgases and takeaway containers are completely biodegradable.
But as good as Mixt Greens is for the planet, it aims to be even better for your health, says co-owner Leslie Silverglide. "It's not just fat and calories, but the nutrients you get in your food," she explains of the seasonal, local focus on the menu, developed by her brother, chef Andrew Swallow.
Combos such as the Siam (green papaya, jicama, mango, cucumber, red pepper, spicy peanuts, thai lemongrass vinaigrette) and the Madison (herb-marinated grilled chicken, asparagus, roasted white-truffle potatoes, shaved parmesan, toasted pine nuts, whole-grain mustard vinaigrette) have proved to be a winning recipe for the chain, which has three locations in San Francisco and opened another branch in L.A. earlier this month. In D.C., it'll gradually be taking over the spots vacated by Organic To Go, meaning the downtown lunch crowd will have plenty of places to sample its salads.
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