San Francisco Weekly May 30, 2012 : Page 13but even the standard ticket price will keep you well-fed, boozed, and boogeying late into the night after the “midnight surprise” is revealed. (Are we the only ones hoping Gavin Newsom and Willie Brown will re-turn for a mayoral freestyle rap-off?) The Black and White Ball starts at 8 p.m. at multiple San Francisco locations. Admis-sion is $225-$5,000; call 864-6000 or visit www.sfsymphony.org. LARISSA ARCHER [PHOTOGRAPHY] Down to the Bone Dead men do tell tales. Especially when the bones of the dead men (and women) are neatly arranged in an ossuary or charnel house. One of the better known collections of human remains makes up the catacombs beneath the streets of Paris, a testament to how quickly the Black Plague took out a sizable portion of the city’s population. Faced with row upon row of grinning skulls, it’s hard not to reflect on the brevity of life. Yet beneath such a macabre surface, Paul Koudounaris is also fascinated by the ossuary’s religious and philosophical contexts. He put together a book on the subject; he sought an impressive number of bone houses across four continents, about 70 total, then photographed them and col-lected their histories. Thanks to Koudou-naris’ photo exhibition, “The Empire of Death” (which shares a title with his book), you don’t have to travel the world to see the bones. Large-scale images from the book transform the upstairs gallery inside the retail store Loved to Death into something of a charnel house itself. Koudounaris also mixes in photographs from his current project, the jewel-bedazzled skel-etons that were appar-ently a thing in the 17th century. We can’t be sure, but we think we sense a theme in his work. “The Empire of Death” opens today at 11:30 a.m. (and continues through June 28) at Articulated Gallery in Loved to Death, 1681 Haight (at Cole), S.F. Admission is free; call 551-1036 or visit www.articulatedgallery.com. HEIDI DE VRIES [DANCE] Nina Herlina of Gamelan Sekar Jaya in Bayangan Jiwa RJ Muna Moving the World There is nothing more transporting than the eerie, earthy sound of metallophones and gongs ringing through the soft sum-mer air as firelight casts the shadows of demons on the wall and lissome women feather their fingers and flash their eyes. For more than three decades, the Ethnic Dance Festival has drawn exquisite and, sometimes, unlikely dancers from around the world. This year, regions represented are as disparate as Transylvania and Peru, but it is our own Gamelan Sekar Jaya that opens the monthlong fete tonight. Since 1979, the 60-member company of musi-cians and dancers has performed at the in-novative Symphony Space in New York as well as small dirt-track villages in Bali, with material as traditional as the Ramayana and as far-flung as their collaborations with The Residents. The world premiere of Bayangan Jiwa e mploys shadow danc-ing and the seven-toned instrumentation of a Semarandana ensemble (rather than the more traditional four tones of Balinese gamelan) to invoke the spaces where spirits dream between light and darkness, silence and sound, stillness and deed. Co-headliner Pusaka Sunda offers gamelan degung mu-sic from West Java, with traditional masked dances and song, followed by a collabora-tion between ensemble leaders I Dewa Putu Berata and Pak Burhan Sukarma. Bayangan Jiwa starts at 8 p.m. at Cowell Theater in Fort Mason (Buchanan and Marina) S.F. Admission is $12-$20; call 345-7575 or visit sfethnicdancefestival.org. SILKE TUDOR Goorin Bros.? Delicious raw chocolate from Lulu’s? You’ll find those too. This year the festival brands itself as “eco-urban,” devot-ing two of its six blocks to green businesses (for the environmentally minded citizen) as well as craftspeople who take sustain-ability seriously in the making of their art. Elsewhere, a family fun zone supplements cooking demonstrations, while live musical entertainment comes in the form of opera, Persian flamenco jazz, and even a touch of prog rock. In other words, it’s summer. The Union Street Festival starts at 10 a.m. June 2-3 on Union (between Gough and Steiner), S.F. Admission is free; visit www. unionstreetfestival.com. HEIDI DE VRIES sfweekly.com NIGHT+DAY BOOKS FILM | | EAT CONTENTS | LETTERS | SUCKA | CONTENTS | LETTERS | MATT SMITH | NEWS FREE | SUCKA FREE | CITY | NIGHT+DAY | | GAME ON | | STAGE | ART FILM | | EAT MUSIC | MUSIC | CITY MON /6.4 [EPHEMERA] Investigate a Literary Legend SUN /6.3 [STREET FESTIVAL] Our “Change of Seasons” “The Empire of Death” In some parts of the world, you can tell spring is turning into summer by reading naturally occurring signs of the seasons — the weather actually gets warmer, for instance. We San Franciscans under our blanket of summertime fog must look to other signals to guide us, namely the series of weekend events that occur this time of year, predictable as clockwork. We recently saw one in Bay to Breakers, with its ram-pant debauchery, albeit subdued a couple of notches. This weekend comes another: the Union Street Festival . It’s impossible to resist the allure of strolling from stall to stall in front of Union Street’s picturesque Victo-rians, grilled teriyaki stick in hand, search-ing for hidden treasures among the vendors or just for a deelybob you know your Aunt Mary will love. A snazzy fedora from The many interpretations of Sherlock Holmes floating around in the multimedia ether make it too easy to forget his literary roots. (The current BBC series Sherlock is outstanding; the overblown Guy Ritchie movies starring Robert Downey Jr. are not.) For those who would like to sweep away the mythologizing and mediafication, get thee to the exhibition “You Know My Methods: A Collector’s Approach to the Sherlockian Canon.” Thirty-five years in the making, Glen S. Miranker’s collection of Holmesiana began as a way to balance his graduate studies in computer science. Miranker went on to become a long-serv-ing vice president at Apple Inc. Now, the Book Club of California — which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year — draws from Miranker’s collection to display origi-nal manuscript pages and Sidney Paget illustrations from one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s best-known Holmes novels, The Hound of the Baskervilles . Also included in the exhibition are pieces of related ephemera, such as playbills and posters from the many stage and film adaptations of Baskervilles . The exhibition opens today with Miranker discussing the evolution of his collection and the items on display. The opening reception and talk for “You Know My Methods: A Collector’s Approach to the Sherlockian Canon” start at 5 p.m. at the Book Club of California, 312 Sutter (at Grant), S.F. Admission is free; call 781-7532 or visit www.bccbooks.org. CASEY BURCHBY Paul Koudounaris SF WEEKLY Walk–ins welcome! clean, sterile, friendly• highly experienced Tough by nature. CAMERA HEAVEN M AY 30-J UNE 5, 2012 M ONTH XX–M ONTH XX, 2010 Voted SF's Best Camera Store Professional Camera Repairs Retail & Accessories We Buy Used Cameras For Cash! 3340 22ND ST | 415.800.7425 missphoenixrosetattoo.com BTWN VALENCIA & GUERRERO OPEN NOON -LATE EVERYDAY WWW.AUSFAIR.COM 1017 BUSH ST. 415.441.5319 746 LARKIN ST SF | 415.346.5169 Open Mon-Sat 10am-5pm 13 Miss Phoenix Rose Tattoo Gallery |
