James Hannah Exposed
He was a tall sheepish gentleman in his late fifties. His eyes were gentle, his chin was weak, his shoulders were starting to stoop. His legs were thin and wobbly, his hair was thinning and gray. And he walked with the hesitant stride of a crane, his head bobbing forward with every step. Watching him amble along the street, one would never guess him to be an artist. A servant, perhaps, a beggar more likely, but not an artist: a soul unencumbered by earthly snares and committed to only the Muse. But an artist he was, and no mere artist at that. He was an artist in the most gallant of mediums: the daring realm of street performance. He did not suffer dullards well, and so he performed in the Mission. The Mission was always full of tourists: inquisitive sorts who could better appreciate his craft than flint-eyed drug dealers or self-absorbed commuters. It was the tourists who gasped breathlessly, riveted their eyes upon him, and laughed with something other than derision. It was the tourists who lifted their cameras, snapped his photo, and hailed his display as a charming motif of San Francisco. And so he honed his skill for the tourists, determined to reward such generosity of spirit. He wore only the best of London Fog raincoats, the most stylish of Panama hats. He timed to perfection the nuances of his pitch: the wiggle of his eyebrows, the teasing flicker of his tongue, the preliminary flaps of his raincoat. And his Monty could best be described as heroic: a godly embrace of liberty and life. An eagle soaring above the Grand Canyon was no more stately in its wingspread.