I saw the woman who wears the Yoda mask at the intersection the other day. I walked over to get a coffee at Peet’s. There was a person talking energetically to another person, both standing next to the streetlight pole, and a sign lying on the wheelchair ramp. I looked at it as I walked past. It was neatly lettered, probably stenciled, and said something like, “City of Sebastopoodle City Council—White bread, not green!” There were words underneath it but I didn’t catch what they were.
“Sebastopoodle” is a pun on the town of Sebastopol. While I understand the meaning of “white bread,” I’m not sure “green bread” is the image you really want to go for… unless you are referring to money.
I was actually closer to Peet’s door when I realized that the owner of the sign could only be the Yoda-mask woman and I looked back. She had her back to me but the mask is one that covers her entire skull, and I could see its smooth green cover hiding her hair. She wore knitted leg-warmers in purple, yellow and white, with a crocheted ruffle at the bottom, leggings, and a purple tunic-like top.
She turns up periodically at this intersection with a sign. Several years ago when I first saw her, she had an anti-war sign. During the crash of 2008, she had a sign equating bankers with robbers. She also had a different mask a couple of times back then, a lavender wolf-mask. I also think I saw her once with a Creature from the Black Lagoon mask, but I can’t be sure.
Sometimes she dances, usually at the city busses as they go by. One day she ran alongside the bus for a few yards, brandishing her sign.
I have talked to her a couple of times. I don’t know what she looks like (the mask) but I do know she has curly gray hair. She has kind of a husky voice, and speaks English with no accent. One day she was dancing, in her Yoda mask with her Bankers=Robbers sign, to Elvis, who sang from a small boom box she had near her. I commented on Elvis. She said, “Elvis is the king.”
“I know,” I said, because really, what else is there to say?
One day I commented that it was beautiful morning, and she agreed.
She may commute all around the city with her signs for all I know, but I imagine her using that intersection as her Facebook page. I sit in my warm house with my laptop, the remaining ten minutes before I have to head off to work, and type in some observation or comment that I share with a circle of friends, and sometimes, because of how Facebook works, with friends of those friends and people I don’t even know. She painstakingly stencils messages (correctly spelled, I might add) on wooden signs and walks the square of the intersection. Her statements are seen by her friends, maybe, and mostly by people she doesn’t even know. Sidewalk social media.