San Francisco, California – Thoth

Now, I have seen some interesting things before, but this has got to top them all: A man, a beautiful, taut, brown man, is playing a violin beautifully. His stage is the broad landing on the steps that lead down to the small tunnel below the road in front of the Conservatory of Flowers, and the acoustics are fantastic.

He is dressed in costume: on his feet are high-heeled black sandals; and wrapped around his ankles are bells, tied with silver-studded leather cords that have furry bits dangling from them. Gold-embroidered black straps encircle his calves just below the knee. He is clothed only in a gold lamé loincloth fastened with a studded black belt, the open sides revealing his well-formed legs. Around his bare chest are chains, like dog collar chains, but wrapped Sam-Brown style across his chest. Gold bands encircle his muscular biceps, and he wears a necklace and large gold hoop earrings. His long hair is braided, then brought up on top of his head with the ends cascading down in a waterfall. Atop the crown is a jaunty red feather.

I’m in the tunnel now, watching him from the front. The sound here is quite exceptional. I can see the violinist’s face now. Around his forehead is a beaded headband with a gold medallion in the center, and gold glitter is sprinkled on his chest. He truly is magnificent to look at.

Accompanying the violinist is a man on a hand drum. The drummer’s skin is a pale, creamy yellow, and he has a long goatee braided into an arched point. His drumming is intense, rhythmic (of course), insistent. Their music is very gypsy at first – romantic, evocative, suspenseful – but then slowly it evolves into a distinctly Celtic sound.

The violinist is wired, but he moves around on a long cord as he plays and sings wordlessly in a high, haunting moan. He plays to the crowd, first leaning down to a blond, cherubic child in a stroller, then dancing with me when I finally put down my notebook.

These two musicians are enormously talented, and unusual in their art, which is a quality even more rare than mere talent. Almost as interesting as the musicians are the people who stop to watch them. San Francisco has so many ultra-hip people, but even they are blown away by this sight and sound. Conservative, white, middle-aged couples; young Asian people; blue-haired, multi-pierced youths; bicyclists; in-line skaters like myself – we are all impressed and pleased with the performance.

Finally, it is over. When the men speak, thanking the crowd for their appreciation, I find myself amazed at their regular speech. It seems so odd that they are Americans; I had expected to hear a strange, exotic, foreign accent of some kind.

Author’s Note

I took a stroll down memory lane the other day, by way of reading through some of my old notebooks from the past few years. While reading I ran across the above passage; it was tucked in among the many more personal (and unprintable!) pages.

Since first encountering Thoth, as I later learned the violinist is named, I have had the pleasure of seeing him on two other occasions as he wandered San Francisco on one of his regular "walkabouts." He can be spotted most often in the Castro or in Golden Gate Park, but you needn’t leave it up to chance, because Thoth has (of course!) a website (www.skthoth.com). You can check his performance schedule, find out more about who he is and what he does, and even see some good pictures. He is a true artist, and a perfect representative of this wild, free, diverse city.

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