Bloco Afrobrazil drum group at the Fair

A good 30 or so live acts took to the street over the course of the afternoon, showcasing everything from rock n’ roll, funk, juggling, kid-friendly Spanish edu-tainment tunes, to clowning. At least I assume there were clowns. I was sitting on the porch of my Highgate home (the street everyone seemed to be taking in lieu of Harvard) and at one point a red pickup full of clowns — crammed in there like they’d just been picked up behind a gas station — rolled by, returning my bemused regard with paint-encrusted disdain. Much to my relief, I did not see them at the fair. I did wait about an hour before heading out after that, though.

I got to Harvard Ave as the drum group Bloco AfroBrazil was banging out some sick beats. I love drum lines, and these guys were tops. They just seemed pumped to be alive, and that translated phenomenally into the beats, raps, and taps that their hands brought about. Music carried on all day at the two stages: a mainstage at the Brighton end and a smaller stage in front of The Draft. I ran into AP-friends A Bit Much at the latter, but just after they’d wrapped up their set. Bummer.

Food was pretty well represented, especially free food. A man was giving out free sliced bread, for chrissakes. There were also free dairy products, free chips, free “sweet crackers” — as the Russian lady identified them (like those crispy deals you sometimes get at Chinese restaurants only covered in powdered sugar) — and free salad. Local favorite Grasshopper had a small buffet set up, manned by adorably petite Asian grandmothers. A burly Russian man flipped burgers and kolbasa beside Bazaar’s stand. I’ve dropped the vegan ball pretty hard this week, let me tell you. I didn’t go for any of those nice kebabs, but I did break down and buy a cherry patisserie from Bazaar. Good God in heaven, it was divine.

All manner of arts, crafts, and various hard goods were up for the buying, as well. There was more than enough tie-dye, and several spots for the reselling of clothes and kitschy housewares. The side streets were capillaries of this commerce, packed with stands peddling a wide variety of jewelry, art, handicrafts, and even really fascinating and slightly off-putting paperbag-mache masks. A man who looked uncannily like Biz Markie donning a Bob Marley flag-cape had a table covered in afrocentric ware, outstanding among the myriad white people also selling all things “ethnic.” In contrast, one comely older woman sat behind an obstinate display of Irish and Christmas-themed handicrafts. Beside her, some guys in ragged black t-shirts sold graffitied canvases.

The diversity of this area was on full display at the fair. From a Spanish-language booth to the Russian market Bazaar’s stand, just about every continent had some representation here. Even within ethnic groups, the variety of people was impressive. The Brazilian drum group had among its performers several enthusiastic white people and an Asian chick to boot. Wandering up and down Harvard Ave would get you whiffs of Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Ukranian, and probably several other languages. What’s more, under one little tent a man and his Peruvian panpipes whistled tunes for the better part of the afternoon. Granted, he seemed to only know or want to play “The Sound of Silence,” but the overtly Caucasian status quo of Boston proper only applied to the day so far as that.

For six hours, this stretch of road was throbbing with humanity. But it was the sort of humanity that took the whole experience from simply fun to profoundly beautiful. In a comparable neighborhood of my hometown (Philadelphia, son) this sort of event would have drawn more hipsters than you could shake a fixie at. I’m telling you, if this were Trenton Ave, you wouldn’t have been able to breathe for the concentration of cut-offs, American Spirits, and bird tattoos going on. And there was plenty of that going on here, too, but hipsters hardly even formed a plurality of the street fair patrons. Instead, Harvard Ave was packed with families. Old couples and young families with small children and teenagers just wandering around, enjoying themselves. Kids, so many kids, with painted faces and plastic horns like vuvuzela; kids playing in the snow (someone trucked in SNOW.) and hopping around to the music. As a student at a college (especially one so island-unto-itself as BU), it’s so easy to forget that people live here. In BU’s case that’s largely because the university, kudzu-like, overtakes everything surrounding it to the point where you could spend four years on campus and never encounter so much as the freaking smell of a neighborhood; you could go through grad school without ever entering a corner store. But this is Allston. And seeing all these people — real, live people with jobs and babies and mortgages and livelihoods vested in this place — was something that hit me very hard. It’s like finding home. Because the Allston Village Street Fair proved, if nothing else, that this really is a home for many, many people. I’m just borrowing it. But it is wholly my intent to embrace it, and the others who abide here, as tightly as I can.