How to dance the way a writer dances

Out of town when the literary journal Zyzzyva threw its annual fundraiser, I seem to have missed a very good time. The venue was the Make-Out Room, where — after speeches and presentations — there was a dance party with music from the ’80s and ’90s.

Luring the literati out onto the dance floor was master of ceremonies Daniel

Handler, who presented what he referred to as “the first annual Zyzzyva West Coast Writers Guide to Dancing ... so that you might choose which literary icon to imitate on the dance floor.”

He began with “Ayelet Waldman: Take acid and dance with Michael Chabon more than anybody else dances with Michael Chabon. Do the Dave

Eggers: Do 826 dance moves, travel all over the world writing books and then come back and do another 826 dance moves, but this time in the Tenderloin. Do the Amy Tan: Dance while carrying a small dog in a bag. Do the Rebecca Solnit: Women, move powerfully and with copious amounts of research; men, interrupt them and mansplain.”

There were many more writers cited, including classic literary figures: “Do the Jack London :Do it with a bunch of merchant marines but in a way that’s not totally gay . ... Do the Gertrude Stein: Dance and then is it a question to be dancing or is the dancing is the dancing the question is it the question is it. Do the Jack Kerouac :Doit great, but unfortunately inspire a bunch of imitators who can’t do it at all.”

My colleague Joshua Kosman described the San Francisco Symphony’s “Music for a Modern Age” as a “manic, madcap, multimedia revue.” I was captivated, elated and dazzled by the performance. At least two of the program’s offerings — Michael Tilson Thomas’ “Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind” and George Antheil’s “A Jazz Symphony” — featured women in gleaming golden costumes. Visually, the only thing that would have added to the many projections on four screens would have been sequins on the orchestra members.

Musically, the maestro’s pleasure at sharing his own music came through. At the end, as listeners made their way up the aisles, they were talking about Thomas’ “Playthings,” the music of which, said the program, had been inspired by Sarah Vaughan, James Brown, Leontyne Price and Igor Stravinsky. They were talking about soprano Measha Brueggergosman slinking around the stage. And they were smiling.

Thanks to organizers of “Illuminate,” the light show projected on the Conservatory of Flowers, entrance to the conservatory will be free on Friday, June 30, to anyone with flowers in their hair. There’s also a new installation in the tunnel that goes under John F. Kennedy Drive there that will make its debut that night.

Movie director Wim Wenders, who is staging a version of Bizet’s opera “The Pearl Fishers” in Berlin, told the New York Times that he’d been inspired to get involved in opera almost 40 years ago, at Tosca Cafe. Wenders had been in San Francisco to work in a movie, but the project was slow. He fell into hanging out at Tosca — a second home, he said — where opera played on the jukebox. He was particularly moved by an area from “Les Pecheurs de Perles.” When conductor Daniel Barenboim proposed a collaboration, nearly four decades later, that’s the opera they chose to do.

The 45-year-old nonprofit Eureka Theatre will end all operations on Wednesday, July 5. The official announcement blamed rising overhead and the costs of maintaining the facility, as well as the defeat of Ballot Measure S, which would have enabled Grants for the Arts to help the venue.

The Eureka Theater Company opened in Trinity Methodist Church at Market and 16th streets, then moved to the Inner Mission. In 1988, it commissioned Tony Kushner to write “Angels in America.” The Eureka’s former co-artistic director, Oskar Eustis, is director of the New York production of “Julius Caesar,” in which Caesar is a Trump-like Caesar figure; among others who’ve worked at the Eureka: Danny Glover, Geoff Hoyle, Tony Taccone.

Since 1998, the Eureka has been at the old Gateway Cinema on Jackson Street, which remains open and will be renamed the Gateway Theatre. All fixtures and theatrical equipment owned by the Eureka will go to 42nd Street Moon; archives to the Museum of Performance + Design.

Leah Garchik is open for business in San Francisco, (415) 777-8426. Email: lgarchik@ sfchronicle.com Twitter: @leahgarchik