Five things to do in Brooklyn this week!

Friday

Jan. 11

Bard house

Start your weekend with a barbaric yawp! Local history mavens the Bowery Boys will explore the Brooklyn roots of poet Walt Whitman at a live recording of their popular podcast, followed by several poets reading from the Bard of Brooklyn’s most famous work.

7:30 pm at the Bell House [149 Seventh St. at Third Avenue in Gowanus, (718) 643–6510, www.thebellhouseny.com]. $20.

Saturday

Jan. 12

Kicking off

Kung-fu movies and Jewish scholarship — together at last! The genre-bending play “The Talmud,” playing as part of the Exponential Festival of new plays, combines a 1970s kung-fu film with the story of an ancient rabbi who seeks revenge after his temple is burnt to the ground.

7:30 pm at Target Margin Theater [232 52nd St. between Second and Third avenues in Sunset Park, (718) 398–3095]. $20.

The hair apparent: Whitman in 1887 (about age 68), now sporting his signature hat and facial hair.

George C. Cox

Sunday

Jan. 13

Mana overboard

Okay, nerds — you may crush the competition with your perfectly tuned Magic: the Gathering deck, but are you ready for “The Weird MTG: RoboRosewater RoboDraft?” This booster draft tournament will use random cards created by a neural net and illustrated by a robot. Watching the game is free.

6 pm at Secret Project Robot (1186 Broadway between Lafayette Avenue and Van Buren Street in Bushwick, www.secretprojectrobot.org). $12.

Magic mess: A tournament of the card game Magic: the Gathering will use cards created and illustrated by computers, at Secret Project Robot on Jan. 13.

Wednesday

Jan. 16

But is she likable?

The 116th Congress is now in place, with a record 127 women in office, including the first Native American and the first Muslim Congresswomen. So racism and sexism are over, right? Learn some of the nuances of that position from a panel of experts at tonight’s panel discussion “Race and Gender in American Politics.”

6:30 pm at Brooklyn Historical Society [128 Pierrepont St. at Clinton Street in Brooklyn Heights, (718) 222–4111, www.brooklynhistory.org]. $5.

Thursday

Jan. 17

Past purrfect

Humans have been keeping pets for a long time. How long? Find out at tonight’s class “The Archeology of Cats and Dogs,” which will look at Aztec temples, Egyptian mummies, and Chinese tombs to discover how our ancestors felt about their fuzzy friends.

Mummy’s best friend: This dog mummy was buried around 400 BC. Learn about the history of cats and dogs as pets at the Brooklyn Brainery on Jan. 17.

Christine Gant

6:30 pm at the Prospect Heights Brainery [190 Underhill Ave. between Sterling and St. John places in Prospect Heights, (347) 292–7246, www.brooklynbrainery.com). $11.