Quirky Free: San Diego Spring Busker Fest

Jugglers, mimes, and outlandish pavement visionaries rule.

BE CLEVER, BE QUICK: A person can find connection with most every occupation and passion, even if that pursuit has never actually been something they've pursued or made a part of their day-to-day. Take buskering, that outlandish and lively artistic calling. It's street art, if you're trying to place where you've encountered buskering before, so if you're picturing mimes or a unicyclist or harlequins on stilts or someone juggling vases, you're in the right quirky corner. Even if you've never buskered, or performed anything ever, you have something in common with these talented bards of the boulevard, if you've ever had to put together a project or a plan and catch eyes quickly. We've all been there, in our working lives, at one time or another, which brings us closer, in spirit to the hard, hard work a busker does: They have to catch the attention of passerby, fast.

THOSE AMAZING BUSKERS... must then delight those pedestrians, and keep them laughing/wowing/scratching their heads, because pedestrians can stroll off at any moment. So we pause to applaud the buskers of the world, and the challenge they face beyond the challenges of their act: gaining notice quickly. If you're intrigued, and buskering is about the most intriguing of lickety-split, stop-and-watch art forms, be in San Diego's Seaport Village on Saturday, March 7 and Sunday, March 8, where a whole bevy of buskers will be out in fantastical force at Spring Busker Fest.

IT'S FREE TO SEE... and boasts a wide range of acts. Past performers have included "Balloon Man" Skip Banks -- picture a guy climbing inside a giant balloon -- and unicycling juggler Bekah Smith. Who will juggle/unicycle/drum/balance/tumble their way into your street-art-loving heart in 2015? Best clear an afternoon for standing and smiling at some of the most difficult of creative callings. If we consider how hard we've worked in our own lives to catch an eye, ponder the performer who must do so, while juggling, atop a stack of teetering boxes. Let's doff our clown-cute top hats, a sartorial staple of buskering, to the buskers of the world.

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