scena

Someone else will have to tell me if this is a normal sight.

Never mind why I was there, but yesterday afternoon I was walking down Maiden Lane in San Francisco, an alleyway famous for being lined with high-end clothing stores, most of which were closed on a Sunday. I don't get to that part of the City very often.

As I reached the end of the block, I could see, and hear, across Grant Avenue, a woman standing in the middle of the street at the start of the next block of Maiden Lane, not where I'd expect to see a busker. She was wearing a red-and-white stage dress, and she was singing something that I'd never heard a busker perform, an opera aria. It was Puccini's "O mio babbino caro." She may have been accompanied by a boombox, but if so it was inaudible across the street, whereas she was not. I stopped to listen. After going through it what seemed like 3 or 4 times (it's a short aria), she stopped. Applause from across the street.