Arts And Entertainment

FRIDAY, MAY 18 -more-

BERKELEY ART CENTER CELEBRATES 40 YEARS -more-

In the prologue to his 1945 novel Cannery Row, John Steinbeck articulated the difficulties inherent in capturing a real time and place in a work of artistic fiction, likening the process to that of a marine biologist attempting to capture the most delicate of specimens. Ultimately, Steinbeck concluded, it is easier to simply open the jar and let the little creatures ooze in of their own accord, and this is the approach he took to his novel—“to open the page and to let the stories crawl in by themselves.” -more-

“Alas, alas, that so bright a moon should be hidden by the clouds.” From this first translation of Rumi into a European language, circa 1780, by Sir William Jones in his Grammar of the Persian Language, through Ralph Waldo Emerson’s solitary version of a Rumi poem, to today’s outpouring of interpretations, the great mystic poet of Islam has become the bestselling poet in English today. -more-

Berkeley’s Himalayan Fair celebrates its 24th year in Live Oak Park this weekend. It might be its last as the city of Berkeley has increased restrictions on the event which may force it to move next year or shut down, according to fair organizers. -more-

TUESDAY, MAY 15 -more-

Photograph: Wayne Wallace will be appearing at the Jazz on Fourth Street Festival this weekend. -more-

Before the opening scene of the Eastenders’ production of Bertolt Brecht’s Fear and Misery of the Third Reich—which opens Thursday, May 17, at the Jewish Community Center for a four-show run, after four days last week at San Francisco’s Traveling Jewish Theatre—there are projections of National Socialist posters of happy comrades, of mother and child, the cheerful false face of Nazi propaganda for the German public and the world. -more-