Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday is a Christian moveable feast that falls on the Sunday before Easter. The feast commemorates Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in each of the four canonical Gospels.

In many Christian denominations, worship services on Palm Sunday include a procession of the faithful carrying palms, representing the palm branches the crowd scattered in front of Jesus as he rode into Jerusalem. The difficulty of procuring palms in unfavorable climates led to their substitution with branches of native trees, including box, yew, willow, and olive. The Sunday was often named after these substitute trees, as in Yew Sunday, or by the general term Branch Sunday.

Biblical basis and symbolism

In the accounts of the four canonical Gospels, Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem takes place about a week before his Resurrection.

The symbolism is captured in Zechariah 9:9 "The Coming of Zion's King – See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey". It suggests that Jesus was declaring he was the King of Israel to the anger of the Sanhedrin.

Sunday

Sunday (ⁱ/ˈsʌndeɪ/ or /ˈsʌndi/) is the day of the week following Saturday but before Monday. For most Christians, Sunday is observed as a day of worship and rest, holding it as the Lord's Day and the day of Christ's resurrection. Sunday is a day of rest in most Western countries, part of 'the weekend'. In some Muslim countries and Israel, Sunday is the first work day of the week. According to the Hebrew calendars and traditional Christian calendars, Sunday is the first day of the week, and according to the International Organization for Standardization ISO 8601 Sunday is the seventh and last day of the week. No century in the Gregorian calendar starts on a Sunday, whether its first year is considered to be '00 or '01. The Jewish New Year never falls on a Sunday. (The rules of the Hebrew calendar are designed such that the first day of Rosh Hashanah will never occur on the first, fourth, or sixth day of the Jewish week; i.e., Sunday, Wednesday, or Friday).

Etymology

Sunday, being the day of the Sun, as the name of the first day of the week, is derived from Hellenistic astrology, where the seven planets, known in English as Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury and the Moon, each had an hour of the day assigned to them, and the planet which was regent during the first hour of any day of the week gave its name to that day. During the 1st and 2nd century, the week of seven days was introduced into Rome from Egypt, and the Roman names of the planets were given to each successive day.

Up Your Alley Fair

The Up Your Alley Fair, most commonly referred to by locals as Dore Alley Fair or simply Dore Alley /ˈdɔːr/ is a leather and fetish event held in San Francisco, California on the last Sunday of July on Folsom Street between 9th and 10th Streets and on Dore Street from Howard Street to half a block southeast of Folsom Street. The streets are lined with vendors' booths, and a sound stage (for dancing) is located at the 10th Street end of Folsom Street.

The first Up Your Alley Street Fair was held in 1985 on Ringold Street between 8th and 9th Streets. The event was moved to its current location on Folsom Street at Dore Street in 1987. Among the original rationales for this fair was to illustrate, in the face of redevelopment pressures, that the South of Market neighborhood was already home to a community and that this community was still active and organized in spite of the AIDS epidemic.

Run by the same non-profit organization that produces the much larger Folsom Street Fair, the world's largest BDSM fetish and leather event, Up Your Alley Fair draws several thousand fetish enthusiasts and onlookers and serves not only as a "warm-up" event for the organizers but also as a less tourist-focused event for locals. This fair is one of many large neighborhood street fairs San Francisco has weekly towards the end of summer, ending with the Castro Street Fair the first weekend of October. Recently San Francisco street fairs, many run by non-profit groups, have begun to network more and organize in response to increased police fees.

Holy Week

Holy Week (Latin: Hebdomas Sancta or Hebdomas Maior, "Greater Week"; Greek: Ἁγία καὶ Μεγάλη Ἑβδομάς, Hagia kai Megale Hebdomas, "Holy and Great Week") in Christianity is the week just before Easter. In the west, it is also the last week of Lent, and includes Palm Sunday, Holy Wednesday (Spy Wednesday), Maundy Thursday (Holy Thursday), Good Friday (Holy Friday), and Holy Saturday. It does not include Easter Sunday, although traditions observing the Easter Triduum may overlap or displace part of Holy Week or Easter itself within that additional liturgical period.

History

Holy Week in the Christian year is the week immediately before Easter. The earliest allusion to the custom of marking this week as a whole with special observances is to be found in the Apostolical Constitutions (v. 18, 19), dating from the latter half of the 3rd century and 4th century. In this text, abstinence from flesh is commanded for all the days, while for the Friday and Sunday an absolute fast is commanded. Dionysius Alexandrinus in his canonical epistle (AD 260), refers to the 91 fasting days implying that the observance of them had already become an established usage in his time.