Thursday, March 14, 2013

Your Wednesday Dolores Park Circus Report

I'm relatively recently unemployed.  This has many downsides, but missing the opportunity to sit in Dolores Park on a random Wednesday afternoon is not one of them.  So, on a day like yesterday, when it's sunny and seventy degrees in early March, I can head out to join the unemployed/collegiate masses in the park at 3PM to take the proverbial sun and people-watch.  I was fully anticipating this would include shirtless men, especially at the Gay Beach.  I was NOT anticipating I'd see an all-out circus, complete with soundtrack.



This was only the beginning.  Two dudes in the foreground here showed up with long baton and started spinning them without hands and cartwheeling while the batons looped around their chests.  Next to them, a hot blonde chick in a long, lacy black dress hula-hooped for a solid hour, like a belly dancer handcuffed to the hoop.  Then a wiry young Asian man approached them and began to backflip and breakdance on the grass.  This caused the baton twirlers to seek his counsel, and for the next hour or so he attempted to show the Batonmen how to flip and twist right.

All over the green, there were handstands and flips and impromptu dancing.

Then, in the distance, between the four big palms just in front of the Christian Scientist Church (oh, the irony), some folks attached what I'm told is called a "slack line," and began some tightrope-style gymnastics.  This particular dude rocking the slack line had, for the record, a rockin' body - do keep an eye out for him next time you're in the park.  Do I know how they live in this town if they're as unemployed as they seem?  I do not.

I eventually tried joining some companions in a few yoga balances, just, you know, so I wouldn't feel out of place, but I've resolved I better get my own circus trick ready for the next visit lest someone realize I'm there observing without sweetening the weirdness pot at all.

I love you, San Francisco.

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