Hopefully you’ve all recovered from the massive hangovers you undoubtedly incurred on Bloomsday and are ready to rage once again. Herewith, our critics’ picks for weekend entertainment:
The Oakland Standard: Felt
If you grew up far from a farm and feel a little sheepish around livestock, say baaah-bye to your misgivings at Felt, the first event in The Oakland Standard‘s Seed Circus series, organized by the Oakland Museum of California. The four-part program aims to acquaint urbanites with nature through discussions and hands-on demonstrations, and this first installment focuses exclusively on man’s fleecy friend the sheep. The event features sheep-shearing demonstrations by a real live farmer, the construction of a giant felt rug, bicycle-powered wool carding, and more, followed by a screening of the documentary Sweetgrass (you can probably guess what it’s about). At the Oakland Museum (1000 Oak St., Oakland) on Sunday, June 19. 1 p.m., free with museum admission. 510-238-2200 or MuseumCA.org/TheOaklandStandard. — Cassie Harwood
Bestiae Mundi
Los Angeles sculptor Ron Pippin has a longstanding interest in integrating human culture, past and present, into the natural world, so combining animal skeletons with scientific/mechanical apparatuses seems a natural evolution of his personal mythology. Bestiae Mundi (Animals of Earth) simulates an old-school natural history museum with its bottles, vitrines, and labeled specimens, but its mechanized-looking skeletal bobcats, rats, turtles, snakes, warthogs, wallabies, goats, and storks, some inscribed with the names of endangered species, are decidedly contemporary (though perhaps not for all contemporaries); they’re assemblages of “dark materials” that serve as “visual prayers.” Don’t miss the small, suspended “Icarus,” a skeletal bird posed as if falling, reminiscent of a splayed Archaeopteryx fossil atop its limestone bed, sporting leather wings. Book signing for Noah Charney’sTracks and Signs of Insects on June 16; bone-cleaning workshop by Ron Cauble on June 30. Bestiae Mundi runs through August 3 at Bone Room (1573 Solano Ave., Berkeley). 510-526-5252 or BoneRoomPresents.com. — DeWitt Cheng