The Photo Ark

The Photo Ark: One Man's Quest to Document the World's Animals, with photographs taken by Joel Sartore, displays endangered animals in a unique way. Animals are placed in front of either a black or white background with nothing else to distract the viewer. The captions on one facing page or both, identify the animal, and give a rating abbreviation from Extinct (EX,) to Least Concern (LC.)  The key to these ratings is on page 33, directly preceding chapter 1. Introductory writing includes a Forward written by Harrison Ford and the story of how the concept of the book began, by the author.

The first chapter named "Mirrors" shows similarities in very disparate animals. There is a sense of humor in the juxtaposition of the animals on a 2 page spread. One side may be a mandrill with very distinct red and white coloring on its face. On the other page, a beetle with similar coloring on its thorax. In another set of photos a King Vulture faces inward toward the center of the book, a red bump giving it an unusual profile. Directly across from the bird bump is the protuberance of a rhinoceros.

This long chapter of animals "facing off" is broken up by brief explanations entitled "Behind the Scenes" or "Heroes." Four other chapters follow with similarly playful pairing. Back matter includes a brief explanation about how the animals were photographed, with a before and after Photoshop example. Notes on the continuing effort to photograph these animals, about the author and contributors, acknowledgements, and finally an index of all the animals by page number, giving the zoos and locations where the animals are housed, with a URL for curious readers are included.

The photo ark: one man's quest to document the world's animals / Joel Sartore ; foreword by Harrison Ford ; introduction by Douglas H. Chadwick. Washington, D.C. : National Geographic, [2017.]   779.32 Sa773p  

10 Years of the SFAC Galleries Passport Event

The San Francisco Public Library is thrilled to be working with the San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) Galleries to present an exhibition celebrating 10 years of SFAC’s annual outreach event, Passport. Launched in 2009, Passport was a family-friendly, art focused, scavenger hunt that fostered an innovative way for artists and the public to interact outside of a gallery setting. The annual event, which has now sunsetted, provided an interactive and affordable way to collect art, raise awareness of the SFAC Galleries and their programs, and use the arts as an economic driver to support small businesses across the city. Over the years, thousands of Passport participants visited vibrant neighborhood venues and collected artwork from over 150 emerging and established artists, as well as works from the estates of Bay Area legends such as Ruth Asawa, Richard Diebenkorn and Roy De Forest. The Library is honored to share with our community SFAC’s display of passport booklets filled with original artist stamps.

Passport was produced by the SFAC Galleries and supported by the SF Office of Economic and Workforce Development.

Banner image: Passport exhibition at the SFAC Main Gallery, 2018. Photo: Phillip Maisel

Currently on view in the Art, Music & Recreation Center

4th Floor, Main Library

Saturday, 9/14/2019 - Thursday, 1/02/20

Rova Saxophone Quartet LIVE!

The world-renowned Rova Saxophone Quartet has been inspiring and challenging audiences for over 40 years. They are a pioneering avant-garde ensemble that explores the dual paths of composition and collection improvisation. Their music defies genre, exploring post-bop, free jazz, avant-rock and contemporary classical music. The San Francisco Public Library is honored to present a concert of new works by the Rova Saxophone Quartet -- Bruce Ackley – soprano saxophone / Steve Adams – alto saxophone / Larry Ochs – tenor saxophone / Jon Raskin – baritone saxophone. The concert will conclude with a Q&A with the audience.

Saturday, 9/28/2019

3pm -5pm

Koret Auditorium, Main Library

To learn more about Rova, visit the Art, Music & Recreation Center to access Rova Saxophone Quartet's vertical file that houses a variety of articles, program flyers, letters, etc.

                                         

The New Romanian Cinema

At the beginning of 2019, San Francisco Public Library’s Art, Music, and Recreation Department launched World Cinema Time, a program featuring foreign films with English subtitles. The screenings happen once a month on Tuesday evenings in the Koret Auditorium.

Tonight's screening at 5:30 PM will be Romanian director Calin Peter Netzer’s film Child’s Pose, the winner of the Golden Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival in 2013.

Although cinema arrived in Romania at the end of the 19th century, the nation has only begun to make award-winning films in the 21st century with the so-called New Romanian Cinema.  The Death of Mr. Lazarescu directed by by Cristi Puiu which won the Un Certain Regard award at the Cannes Film Festival in France in 2005 opened the floodgates for Romanian films to bag 28 international awards by the end of 2018.

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (dir. Cristian Mungiu) became the first Romanian film to win Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2007, and caused a controversy when it didn’t make the Foreign Language Film shortlist for Oscars. This film perhaps remains the Romanian film with the strong reputation.
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Scholarship on Romanian cinema is scant by international standards. But a basic keyword search (Romanian cinema) in databases such as Art Full Text and Film & Television Literature Index with Full Text will yield a wealth of information on various aspects of Romanian cinema.

We can recommend the DVDs in our collection:

 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days (2007)
 
Child's Pose (2013)
 
Beyond the Hills (2012)

The way I Spent the End of the World (2006)
 
Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005)

12:08 East of Bucharest (2006)

Main Columns, pt. 2

One of the principal design elements of James Ingo Freed's Main Library building are cylindrical columns located on the east and west sides of the atrium.

A previous entry looked at the positioning of these columns on the west side of the Main Library building.  This entry will look at them on the building's east side.

Columns 6, 7, 10 and 11 extend from the Library's Lower Level and parallel the ceremonial staircase to the west of the atrium.

Only column 11 is visible from the Lower Level, located just outside the door to the restrooms.  The other columns cannot be seen on the Lower Level because they are incorporated into interior walls. It remains visible as it extends to the 1st floor.  On the 2nd floor column 11 is incorporated into the south wall at the entrance to Children's Center

On the 1st floor, columns 7 and 6 are located on both sides of the self-return machine.

Column 10 is placed further back in the sorting area with a metallic covering to protect it from the impact of book trucks.   (Column 11 on the outside of this space).

On the 2nd floor, columns 7 and 6 mark the beginning of the ceremonial staircase.

Columns 11 and 10 are just outside the windows at the entrance to the Children's Center.  Column 11, as noted above is incorporated into the outside wall.

On the 3rd floor, columns 7 and 6 are placed parallel at the rear of the ceremonial staircase.

Columns 10 and 11 behind them are positioned behind a bookcase and in front of the study rooms.

Viewed from the 4th floor phonodisc collection, columns 8 and 9 stand parallel to the staircase and columns 10 and 11 stand close behind computer terminals and in front of the study rooms.

On the 5th floor, columns 6 and 7 are enclosed within a foyer at the top of the stairs.

Columns 10 and 11 stand between a desk and a card catalog and the study rooms.

Here is a view of columns 7, 6 (behind glass) and 10 on the 5th floor facing the staircase.

On 6th floor, columns 10 and 11 have a metallic exterior and line the windowed wall to the Rooftop Terrace.

Their partners, columns 6 and 7 are spaced within the 6th floor's Rooftop Gallery.

Columns 8, 9, 12, 13 and 14 will be discussed in a later entry.


Previous entries:

The Altes Museum and the Main Library (March 6, 2019)

Rotunda Resonances in the San Francisco Main Library (March 25, 2019)

 Labrouste's Libraries, Structural Columns and the Main Library (May 9, 2019)

Main Library Columns, pt. 1 (June 13, 2019)

A Date with Lucky: a musical documentary and performance

Join us for the short award-winning documentary Getting Lucky and a set of live music. Private Eye by day, singer and artist by night -- that’s how Mr. Lucky rolls!

Directed by Oscar Bucher, Getting Lucky is an offbeat musical documentary about Pierre Merkl III, a.k.a. “Mr. Lucky”, a man of many faces and San Francisco’s most eccentric private detective.

Driving around The City in his 1961 New Yorker, Pierre recalls his days as investigator and conceptual figurative painter, alongside his nights under the stage lights as Mr. Lucky, performing punk to eclectic to jazz— at venues from Burning Man to Lincoln Center to Bimbo’s 365 Club to Windows on the World and beyond.

A love song to San Francisco, Getting Lucky is also a bittersweet warning that the great city is slowly losing its eccentric characters, and with it, its bohemian soul. Getting Lucky isn’t about luck-- it’s about the hard work, unrelenting confidence, and idiosyncratic creativity that it takes for an offbeat character like Lucky to exist at all.

Following the screening of the film (along with bonus shorts) Mr. Lucky & the Cocktail Party will perform live on the Koret stage.

Co-presented by the Art, Music and Recreation Center and the San Francisco History Center’s S.F. Punk Archive.

Tuesday, July 23rd, 2019

6:00pm - 7:30pm

Main Library Columns, pt. 1

A previous blog entry on the influence of Labrouste's libraries on the James Ingo Freed designed Main Library discussed the prevalence of circular columns, especially around the building's atrium.

This entry will focus on the five circular columns on the atrium's west side (toward Larkin Street), numbered 1 to 5.

Paired columns 1, 3 and 2, 5 lie on an imagery vector from the building's center at the Larkin Street side to the atrium itself.  Column 4 falls within the line between columns 3 and 5, and at an angle that parallels Market Street outside (a design feature that also positions the Periodical Reading Room on the 5th floor).

These columns extend from the Library's Lower Level to its roof.  Incorporated into walls, they are not visible on the Lower Level, but they emerge into the open in the Fiction / Browsing Collection of the First Floor.

Columns 2 abuts a book shelf and Column 5 is positioned near the Mary Louise Stong Conference Room.

Columns 4 and 5 on the first floor mark the end of the marble floor surface.

The second floor presents these columns in a more open manner.  Viewed  from the Talking Books and Braille Center, Columns 3 and 1 (left to right) are at the foreground straddling the bridge across to the Center. In the background columns 4 and 2 frame the entrance to The Mix.

From the Larkin Street entrance Column 1 follows the line that extends from the building's center and is a tangent to the circular atrium (Column 3 is just behind it along the same line).  A little bit of the First Floor is visible below.

Column 4 backs the stand announcing Library events visible to patrons entering from Larkin Street.  Column 5 is paired with it inside The Mix.

Another view shows column 2 is positioned just outside the Mix / Teen Center, while column 5 is captured within.

Column 5, isolated at the entrance to The Mix helps form a small nook.

Columns 4, 5 and 2 on the third floor break up sections of desks and shelving.

On the fourth floor, Columns 5 and 2 wedge a table of internet computers.  Column 5 directly support the Periodical Reading Room above, while column 2 abuts it.

Columns 2 on the fifth floor is directly outside the glassed in Periodical Reading Room, while Columns 4 and 5 fall along a diagonal line bisecting the room.

Column 2 rising continuously from the fourth floor to the roof supports Alice Aycock's Cyclone Fragment sculpture (column 4 is visible in the distance inside the Periodical Reading Room).

Aycock's other sculpture, Functional and Fantasy Stair envelopes Column 3 at the other end of the room.  Column 1 (normally paired with Column 3 does not extend into the Fifth Floor).

On the Sixth, Columns 3, 4 and 5 resolve into a line that guides the railing that extends above the Periodical Reading Room.

The columns on the opposite side of the atrium (on the building's Hyde Street side) will have a different story to tell in a later entry.

Previous entries:

The Altes Museum and the Main Library (March 6, 2019)

Rotunda Resonances in the San Francisco Main Library (March 25, 2019)

 Labrouste's Libraries, Structural Columns and the Main Library (May 9, 2019)