Today was the Bay to Breakers race. Both my husband and I felt an intense desire to leave the City for the day. I love odd, quirky events, street theater, guerrilla performance art and all that jazz as much as the next Joe Schmo, if it's done with imagination. A big "if." I saw more guys in tutus and girls in tight shorts and t-shirts with "funny" statements on them than I care to remember, as I traversed the City (for unfortunately, I had an event to attend on the other side of town at 1 pm).
San Francisco is losing its pizzazz. Although for the last twenty years or so, the Bay to Breakers hasn't had any pizzazz, so it's not really this one race's fault. The Bay to Breakers is just one symptom of a general illness. The city does not know how to do "quirky" any more. That is, people still attempt to act nonconformist, but end up looking remarkably alike in their supposed nonconformism. I don't know what the cure is--except, a few really good guerrilla performance art companies, like the one I was very briefly involved with in the eighties, Contraband. Done the right way, guerrilla theater can poke holes in the stodgy conformity of any culture, even San Francisco conforming-nonconformist culture.
Since I wasn't prepared to start a guerrilla theater troupe this afternoon, I did make it out of the City with my husband by around 3:30--down to Mountain View's Shoreline Park, where the conformity doesn't pretend to be nonconformist...my fourteen-month-old son was blown about by the wind, but seemed to enjoy himself; and once again, my husband and I contemplated a move south at some point in the distant future.
The only problem is: I still love San Francisco. Despite appearances.
No comments:
Post a Comment