Bay Area Culture

A couple of weekends ago, I had a college friend come visit me here in San Francisco. On one of the afternoons that he was here, we walked pretty aimlessly around the city but eventually went to hang out by City Lights Bookstore in North Beach. After perusing the eclectic titles shown in the window display, we made our way towards Vesuvio, which is famous for having been a hangout spot for a lot of the Beat writers, including Kerouac and Ginsberg. Fittingly, the alleyway that separates City Lights and Vesuvio is named Jack Kerouac Alley. Well, in Jack Kerouac Alley, there was a street performer sitting up against the wall plucking away on his guitar a Dylan song and singing plaintively. Next to him, there was a group of four to five guys and girls dancing. Bodies and limbs were being flung every which way, there was a lot of stomping and stumbling as it was obviously free-form interpretive dance. One of the dancers saw that we were admiring the whole scene and beckoned us to join. He took a couple of steps towards us, stopped a second and then said, with conspiracy in his voice, "Right here. This is the energy that created the universe." We walked into Vesuvio and nursed a couple rounds of Anchor Steam beer.