Albatross! Get Your Albatross!

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• Ana Fernandez
• Allison Smith

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The first peddler’s cry that ever got our attention was at the Renaissance Fair. “Ladies! How’d you like something hard and sweet between your lips?” As teenagers, we had coincidentally just been pondering that very question. (The product in question was lemon ice, and we were too broke to get any; point moot.) At the “Cries of San Francisco” Market Day, artist Allison Smith leads a very large and loudly braying group of people around the Market and Fifth area, loose in the streets. Some are selling, some are soapboxing, some are poking fun at art-capitalism. Others call themselves The Psychic Plumbing Network. Popular local artist (popular with us, especially) Ana Fernandez appears as “Miranda Texido: Love Poems and Letters of Recommendation.” You can buy sand, get your knife ground, or meet a chimney sweep. Each has prepared a yodel, hoot, holler, or screech in the tradition of street sellers everywhere. (The most locally recognizable one, “Tamales, tamales?” may not include a funny dirty joke, but it sure gets the job done.) All of the participants cry out to you; may their patter dovetail with your inner dialogue.
Sat., June 11, noon, 2011