The Chihuahua from the house across the street looked 
picturesque, if such a thing was possible. But then, anybody peering around cherry red drapes and out of a window of a pastel-colored Victorian-style house overlooking the bay on Mason Street in San Francisco had an unfair advantage in the looks department.
I returned its curious gaze forlornly, for I was heartbroken. I had known that summer romances never lasted, but this one had been all too short. It had blazed with sun and passion for four unforgettable days and now it was time to say goodbye.
I sighed and perched myself uncomfortably on the peculiarly narrow swivel seat in the bus shelter. A cable car lumbered by. The operator recognized me and waved. I grinned at him, feeling like the butt of a cosmic joke. Someone out there had known that I was a pushover when it came to random whimsical behavior and had woven up an elaborate web of seduction.
How else can one explain the curious incident of the Singing Chinese Lady? It had happened on one of the viewing decks on Russian Hills, which could be accessed by climbing a dizzying number of steps angled at 70 degrees. The Chinese lady had come out of one of the houses, seen me, and started talking to me in rapid Chinese, gesturing at the vista in front of us. When I had told her I don’t understand Chinese, she had proceeded to sing about it! “Yes,” I had responded, “It is a very beautiful sight.”
Lonely Planet was to be blamed for it all. It had set me up like a wily old matchmaker, with delectable prose. “Nutty”, it had described SF. “Like a gold miner’s grin… full of character, but a little crooked,” it'd warned. “Pretty damn alluring and has a tendency to ensnare visitors, who… leave their hearts here,” it'd predicted.
Sigh! My chances of being indifferent had been that of a snowball in—hell, you know the cliché.
The first day, I had walked out of the foyer of my hotel, past its clown-liveried doormen, across the cable car lines, to Union Square, and towards the counter where I thought they were selling tour tickets. However, two people had pounced on me before I had gotten anywhere near the counter.
“It’s a musical on Cinderella story, with a San Francisco twist to it,” the young man had said, pointing to his very gay person. “I’m in it and it’s going to be fun!”
“Let me tell you about my improv show,” the wacky young woman had said, striking a dance pose. “It’s completely unscripted and has a lot of laughs!”
I had capitulated with alacrity.
“Unscripted” had been as quirky as they come. The five actors had chatted with the audience, plied us with popcorn, beer, and cookies, took suggestions from us and acted the scenes out. The highlight of the evening had been “Gandhi – the musical”, complete with bangra moves and chest heaving dance steps, unanimously voted as the best by the audience.
“Oh My Godmother” had been campy, sassy, and most of the time, side-splittingly funny. Yes, it is a boy in drag-meets-handsome prince story, but some of the lyrics and dialogs were positively wicked.
In the “Everybody has somebody (why not me)” song, “even Spitzer has a hooker on each knee,” lamented the evil stepsisters.
“Prince has fallen for a girl!” the gay parents exclaimed, with a droll “not that there’s anything wrong with it” aside (turn in your non-existent grave, Jerry Seinfeld!).
“Oh that’s a big shoe!” Prince’s gay friend drooled over the plot clincher, with an orgasmic eye-roll. “You know what a big shoe means, don’t you?” “No” said Prince. “Well, it means he has big feet, of course!” replied the friend cheekily.
Not everything was light and flighty in the city though.
In the steamy, urine-scented alleys of Mission district, vibrant, passionate, exquisite mural art bloom on garage doors, community swimming pools, schools, and business establishments. The artwork depict the heritage, nostalgia, anger, and hope of the predominantly Latin-American
population. You will find civil war scenes from El Salvador and Nicaragua, hope of political reform in Nepal, stories from Aztec mythology, and a memorial mosaic for a teenage couple tragically shot dead in the park.
The mural walk conducted by Percita Eyes had taken us through the neighborhood and ended in the local gym-cum-church, where the Sunday morning sermon had been in full swing. Our stop had been to look at an enormous street-to-roof mural. As we were looking up, a small dusky face had looked down at us from the mezzanine floor—a little boy, probably bored by the morning’s pieties.
We had laughed and waved at him and his sister. Both of them had run out onto the sunlit street in apparent embarrassment. But only for a couple of minutes—the boy had come back, tugged my shirt and asked, “Can me and my sister have a dollar?”
“Oh he was hustling!” my fellow walker, a SF local, had exclaimed when I explained the exchange to her. I had grinned goofily, the international sign of love.
Up on the hills, in North Beach, City Light Bookstore is serious about freedom of expression. The owner Lawrence Ferlinghetti won a landmark 1957 ruling against book banning, which paved the way for publication of hitherto banned books.
Named after the famous Chaplin movie and made famous by Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, it is not a big store—the downtown Borders has far greater square footage. But it is chock-a-block with books of genres that Borders of the world wouldn’t dare to put on their shelves. It urges you to sit and read, rather than buy and leave.
The Bound Together Anarchist Bookstore in Upper Haight Street is very vocal about its extreme left denomination. “I am not afraid of terrorists. So don’t feel obliged to make a police state for my sake,” one sticker announces. “The greatest threat to human freedom is respect for authority,” another exhorts. From pamphlets to well-researched books, there is anarchy and revolution all
around.
In a supremely ironic gesture, I had produced my credit card—that vile tool of the consumerist credit economy, whose trade lobby mafia is pinching the world food supply, piercing ozone layers, manufacturing consent, and curbing free speech—to buy a couple of incendiary books. “Oh we don’t take cards,” the volunteer at the counter had said, with the unmistakable “duh!” hovering in the air. Indeed, they have an old fashioned wooden cash till—perfectly adequate for the purpose, I suppose.
Add to this ensemble Amoeba records, a collection of Tibetan/Indian curio shops, tattoo parlors, and cafes, Haight had been unlike any other place I have seen. Figured—it had, after all, set the precedent with the Human Be-In of 1967 and the hippie movement.
But in true SF fashion, things had changed dramatically up on the steep slopes of Buena Vista Park, which is at the southern end of the Haights market. Lonely planet had sent me scampering up on it to “gawk at the views and lust over the Victorians.” Although the climbing had been a little treacherous, the city had looked dreamy and magical, like a fantasy—perhaps a most fitting metaphor.
Talking of magic, “let there be fog at the Golden Gate Bridge,” said I. “Aye, aye!” said the Fog Goddess. There the bridge had stood over sullen waters, all elegance and film-noir mystery, its peaks blurred and softened by rolling fog.
Nothing, not even the Brooklyn Bridge, had prepared me for the splendor of this structure. Nor for the fact of how high the bridge is. I had clung to the railing, vertiginous with the rushing traffic on one side and the bikers and pedestrians on the sidewalk, too scared to look down. But despite the taste of fear in my mouth, the experience on the bridge had been spectacular.
Now, with just a few more hours in the city, I was moping around on the streets, giving malevolently jealous looks to the young woman hurrying into a Laundromat with her laundry basket.
I will miss the city. I will miss the confusion on the steep undulating streets where cars, buses, cable cars, and pedestrians jostled against each other. I will miss the street artists, playing strings stretched between two cans or percussion on paint drums. I will miss the panhandlers, who held up b
izarre signboards such as “need a hooker, please help”! I will miss eating in the multitude of restaurants, where guests at the next table invariably leaned over and asked, “What are you having? Looks interesting!”
I have lost my heart to SF—will I ever be able to come back and get it?
picturesque, if such a thing was possible. But then, anybody peering around cherry red drapes and out of a window of a pastel-colored Victorian-style house overlooking the bay on Mason Street in San Francisco had an unfair advantage in the looks department.I returned its curious gaze forlornly, for I was heartbroken. I had known that summer romances never lasted, but this one had been all too short. It had blazed with sun and passion for four unforgettable days and now it was time to say goodbye.
I sighed and perched myself uncomfortably on the peculiarly narrow swivel seat in the bus shelter. A cable car lumbered by. The operator recognized me and waved. I grinned at him, feeling like the butt of a cosmic joke. Someone out there had known that I was a pushover when it came to random whimsical behavior and had woven up an elaborate web of seduction.
How else can one explain the curious incident of the Singing Chinese Lady? It had happened on one of the viewing decks on Russian Hills, which could be accessed by climbing a dizzying number of steps angled at 70 degrees. The Chinese lady had come out of one of the houses, seen me, and started talking to me in rapid Chinese, gesturing at the vista in front of us. When I had told her I don’t understand Chinese, she had proceeded to sing about it! “Yes,” I had responded, “It is a very beautiful sight.”
Lonely Planet was to be blamed for it all. It had set me up like a wily old matchmaker, with delectable prose. “Nutty”, it had described SF. “Like a gold miner’s grin… full of character, but a little crooked,” it'd warned. “Pretty damn alluring and has a tendency to ensnare visitors, who… leave their hearts here,” it'd predicted.Sigh! My chances of being indifferent had been that of a snowball in—hell, you know the cliché.
The first day, I had walked out of the foyer of my hotel, past its clown-liveried doormen, across the cable car lines, to Union Square, and towards the counter where I thought they were selling tour tickets. However, two people had pounced on me before I had gotten anywhere near the counter.
“It’s a musical on Cinderella story, with a San Francisco twist to it,” the young man had said, pointing to his very gay person. “I’m in it and it’s going to be fun!”
“Let me tell you about my improv show,” the wacky young woman had said, striking a dance pose. “It’s completely unscripted and has a lot of laughs!”
I had capitulated with alacrity.
“Unscripted” had been as quirky as they come. The five actors had chatted with the audience, plied us with popcorn, beer, and cookies, took suggestions from us and acted the scenes out. The highlight of the evening had been “Gandhi – the musical”, complete with bangra moves and chest heaving dance steps, unanimously voted as the best by the audience.
“Oh My Godmother” had been campy, sassy, and most of the time, side-splittingly funny. Yes, it is a boy in drag-meets-handsome prince story, but some of the lyrics and dialogs were positively wicked.
In the “Everybody has somebody (why not me)” song, “even Spitzer has a hooker on each knee,” lamented the evil stepsisters.
“Prince has fallen for a girl!” the gay parents exclaimed, with a droll “not that there’s anything wrong with it” aside (turn in your non-existent grave, Jerry Seinfeld!).“Oh that’s a big shoe!” Prince’s gay friend drooled over the plot clincher, with an orgasmic eye-roll. “You know what a big shoe means, don’t you?” “No” said Prince. “Well, it means he has big feet, of course!” replied the friend cheekily.
Not everything was light and flighty in the city though.
In the steamy, urine-scented alleys of Mission district, vibrant, passionate, exquisite mural art bloom on garage doors, community swimming pools, schools, and business establishments. The artwork depict the heritage, nostalgia, anger, and hope of the predominantly Latin-American
population. You will find civil war scenes from El Salvador and Nicaragua, hope of political reform in Nepal, stories from Aztec mythology, and a memorial mosaic for a teenage couple tragically shot dead in the park.The mural walk conducted by Percita Eyes had taken us through the neighborhood and ended in the local gym-cum-church, where the Sunday morning sermon had been in full swing. Our stop had been to look at an enormous street-to-roof mural. As we were looking up, a small dusky face had looked down at us from the mezzanine floor—a little boy, probably bored by the morning’s pieties.
We had laughed and waved at him and his sister. Both of them had run out onto the sunlit street in apparent embarrassment. But only for a couple of minutes—the boy had come back, tugged my shirt and asked, “Can me and my sister have a dollar?”
“Oh he was hustling!” my fellow walker, a SF local, had exclaimed when I explained the exchange to her. I had grinned goofily, the international sign of love.Up on the hills, in North Beach, City Light Bookstore is serious about freedom of expression. The owner Lawrence Ferlinghetti won a landmark 1957 ruling against book banning, which paved the way for publication of hitherto banned books.
Named after the famous Chaplin movie and made famous by Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, it is not a big store—the downtown Borders has far greater square footage. But it is chock-a-block with books of genres that Borders of the world wouldn’t dare to put on their shelves. It urges you to sit and read, rather than buy and leave.
The Bound Together Anarchist Bookstore in Upper Haight Street is very vocal about its extreme left denomination. “I am not afraid of terrorists. So don’t feel obliged to make a police state for my sake,” one sticker announces. “The greatest threat to human freedom is respect for authority,” another exhorts. From pamphlets to well-researched books, there is anarchy and revolution all
around.In a supremely ironic gesture, I had produced my credit card—that vile tool of the consumerist credit economy, whose trade lobby mafia is pinching the world food supply, piercing ozone layers, manufacturing consent, and curbing free speech—to buy a couple of incendiary books. “Oh we don’t take cards,” the volunteer at the counter had said, with the unmistakable “duh!” hovering in the air. Indeed, they have an old fashioned wooden cash till—perfectly adequate for the purpose, I suppose.
Add to this ensemble Amoeba records, a collection of Tibetan/Indian curio shops, tattoo parlors, and cafes, Haight had been unlike any other place I have seen. Figured—it had, after all, set the precedent with the Human Be-In of 1967 and the hippie movement.
But in true SF fashion, things had changed dramatically up on the steep slopes of Buena Vista Park, which is at the southern end of the Haights market. Lonely planet had sent me scampering up on it to “gawk at the views and lust over the Victorians.” Although the climbing had been a little treacherous, the city had looked dreamy and magical, like a fantasy—perhaps a most fitting metaphor.Talking of magic, “let there be fog at the Golden Gate Bridge,” said I. “Aye, aye!” said the Fog Goddess. There the bridge had stood over sullen waters, all elegance and film-noir mystery, its peaks blurred and softened by rolling fog.
Nothing, not even the Brooklyn Bridge, had prepared me for the splendor of this structure. Nor for the fact of how high the bridge is. I had clung to the railing, vertiginous with the rushing traffic on one side and the bikers and pedestrians on the sidewalk, too scared to look down. But despite the taste of fear in my mouth, the experience on the bridge had been spectacular.
Now, with just a few more hours in the city, I was moping around on the streets, giving malevolently jealous looks to the young woman hurrying into a Laundromat with her laundry basket.
I will miss the city. I will miss the confusion on the steep undulating streets where cars, buses, cable cars, and pedestrians jostled against each other. I will miss the street artists, playing strings stretched between two cans or percussion on paint drums. I will miss the panhandlers, who held up b
izarre signboards such as “need a hooker, please help”! I will miss eating in the multitude of restaurants, where guests at the next table invariably leaned over and asked, “What are you having? Looks interesting!”I have lost my heart to SF—will I ever be able to come back and get it?
Comments
I liked your unique perception of the city as a lone-traveller, meeting random strangers, reading their expressions and beautifully capturing them. Surely, the lady rushing to the laundromat would not have looked at her own city from this way an outsider would look. People kind of "get used" to the new place once they start "living" there. Oh well, for an explorer, that becomes the time to move to a new place to start the gazes all over again :)
Good luck with your posts!!
Rohan, that was a truly awesome compliment! Thanks a ton!