A Stroke of Local Color

 San Francisco is known architecturally for its row after row of colorful little houses. But it is the people and their colorful little hearts that make the city all it is. They come in all different designs, all with different trimmings and rough edges. But they all stick out like the houses dotting the San Francisco hills—filled to the brim with personality, brightening the days of others, bulging against the foggy gray of the sky. They ooze out of city streets, adding true San Francisco flavor to any outing.

I’d like to profile a few of these fine fellows, the first whom I’ve come to know and love as Statue Man. He’s one of the many street performers that mark the corners of Fisherman’s Wharf. Statue Man stands still for hours and hours, shifting slightly to test the sanity of passerby that do double takes. He wears sunglasses to hide what I can only imagine must be twitching eyes. No smile on a statue that I have ever seen looks that worn out, as though the sculptor forgot to smooth his hand over the edges. But even Statue Man finds a way of amusing himself in his job. I’ve seen countless kids get too close, straining to touch him. He will then jerk suddenly to loom over them, breaking into a crazed theatrical smile that is menacingly real. The children run screaming and Statue Man reaches his hand out to the parent, wiggling his fingertips for the money.

 I went with a friend to what SF calls their annual “Trolley Dances.” In a series of dances set in varied city locations, different dance troupes redefined public art. From Latin choreography danced along walls to dancers rolling down hills, the audience did not know where the performers would appear. The funniest of these began with two dancers sleeping—in the middle of the road. Slowly they awakened and others appeared. The event planners obviously did not think of posting signage to alert the cars of the neighborhood. As women were thrown into the air and men lunged underneath to catch them, cars screeched to a stop all around them. They danced, after all, in the middle of an intersection. The reaction of the cars was half of the show. Stubbornly they would try and inch around the dancers, then fail and dramatically throw the car into reverse. One angrily backed up the entire length of the street. The best moments were those in which the dancers winked and waved to them goodbye.

As the audience waited for the bus to take them to the next dance, a scrawny man whistled to gain everyone’s attention. He began to perform the usual, juggling, magic tricks, fire. He knew the huge audience wasn’t going anywhere. In fact, he just might have been following us awaiting his opportunity. He purposefully jumped in front of cars, performing tricks right over their hoods and then acting hurt when they sped away. He didn’t speak a word until he saw our bus turning the corner. He then shoved his hat into the crowd, delivering a monologue beginning with “I’m an Italian immigrant!!!” in an accent I could not quite deem real. When he’d collected his money, he threw his hat back on his head, placed his tricks back in a bag, and just like that blended in with a crowd turning the corner. He didn’t look back. 

The local color is by no means limited to people. I waited for a bus by a very comical little fellow, a pug tied to a post waiting for its owner. He was cute enough, with a characteristic smashed face. But everyone who passed greeted that dog by name. Everyone! He just sat there lazily wagging his tail against the ground, tilting his head at his groupies, his fan club members, his unending popularity. San Francisco is no small town, but there I was petting the city dog. I ended up meeting the owner before my bus came. She shrugged at his fame as well. She said the dog even had a Twitter page. She mentioned they went every month to the San Francisco tradition “Pug Sunday.” If you’re a pug lover, San Francisco is the right city for you! Owners gather in a park and show off their overweight, drooling, famous little furry friends. Imagine that.

My favorite encounter with a local thus far followed the Disney symphony I went to see downtown with some friends. In the mood, we sang some of the songs as we waited at the bus stop. One of these was “Be Our Guest” from Beauty and the Beast. Gradually our remembrance of the words puttered out, and we stopped. There was a man, completely ordinary looking, waiting for the bus as well. He looked to be in his thirties, wore a backpack and glasses, and he ever so often adjusted his ear buds as he scrolled through a menu on his phone. But just as we stopped singing, he took off his headphones and burst into the rest of “Be Our Guest,” complete with the accent of the character and a dramatic dance of the eyebrows. My friends and I only stared, until he finished the very last line and we applauded. In response he said, in a somewhat choked up voice “I’m sorry, it was just such…a beautiful…show!!!” He turned away again, put his ear buds back in, and resumed his scrolling.

Random people, little experiences, short hiccups and heart beats of the city. Freckles on the blushing face of San Francisco, not always visible but noticeable if you take the time to look. I’ve come to worship them, to hope in the moments before I walk out my door that there is some short story to mark the passage of another day. I’m sure one day I’ll walk straight into a future character of one of my novels, and he’ll charm me as all of these people (and pets) have done. It would be sad to think in a city of so many people, our lives don’t intersect every once and a while.  Because even strangers have the power to touch our lives in big ways.

Just as it takes many colorful houses to distinguish a hill, it takes seeking out many lively personalities to brighten a life. Even if that means venturing out without knowing whom you’ll encounter along the way. Those are the experiences the most worth singing and dancing about—those are the beautiful shows of humanity. So find the twitching statue and sleeping leaping dancers and the Italian immigrant and the local dog and the Disney singer. Every life needs a sprinkle of eccentricity.