Tracking the San Francisco Twin
“A year after the
passing of a sassy San Francisco celebrity, one soul-searching young twin
traverses the town in search of Vivian Brown’s surviving sister.”
http://narrative.ly/twins/tracking-the-san-francisco-twin/
As a San
Francisco native, I have come to find out that my city is not more than a big
town. The native community is particularly small and close knit, so when I
heard that one of San Francisco’s notorious icons had died last year, my heart
dropped. The San Francisco twins were
not just any other pair of twins. They were quite eccentric, dressing identical,
every day, from head to toe. My memory of them as a child was a pleasant one.
When I would go with my mom to Powell Street to do our annual Christmas
shopping, they would always be there, in front of Union Square, posing proudly
taking photos with tourists. They would greet everyone that passed them, and
their presence to me, marked the definition of class. So, I was very moved by
this particular piece written by Stephanie Parcell, on her investigation of the
legendary San Francisco twins. Her goal was to find out what happened to Marian
Brown, the other half of Vivian Brown, who past away in 2013.
The author’s piece is extremely well written. She begins her
story by introducing the restaurant where the SF twins frequented for decades;
Uncle Vito’s, located in the heart of the North Beach district, just off of
Bush and Powell St. They had an unwritten reserved table at this restaurant, a
table for two by the window accompanied by their favorite small pizza and
favorite glass of red wine. The twins would dine and sit, watching cars and
people pass by. They would invite strangers to dine with them, take photos with
admiring strangers, and signed autographs. She writes, “ They were unofficial
ambassadors of the city; mayors and tourists alike sought them out for photos.
(“This is the best city in the world!” they’d shout proudly)”; and I could not
agree with this statement more.
What made this piece powerful was the connection between the
author and her subject, Marian Brown. Stephanie Parcell, who wrote the story,
is also an identical twin. She inserts her personal story before she introduces
her motives for meeting Marion Brown and explains what its like to be a twin.
She explains that although her twin is also her best friend, it was important
for her to gain her own independent identity. She sought out to find Marian
Brown to tell her life story, and give her own voice, one that she and her
sister Vivian have shared for more that 80 years. However, despite many attempts,
Marian were very hard to find. Through many trial and errors, the author found
out through the restaurant the twins visited, that Marian was pushed out of her
apartment and was forced out of the city, into a nursing home. In the story,
she explains that when she arrived at Vivian and Marians abandoned
apartment, “It was a lonely sound to experience in solitude, and as
I stood in the quiet hall clenching my fists, my heart broke, imagining how it
felt for Marian”. This stood out because it exemplifies the powerful force
twins have with one another. The author explains that it must have been
absolutely devastating and unbearable to live in the same apartment you once
shared with your twin. She constantly retreats back to memories and of living
with her own sister in southern California and how difficult it was for her to
separate. In the end, the author was able to get an interview on the twins
through Uncle Vito’s restraint manager David Dubinor. He explained that after
Vivian died, the SF community raised money to support Marian’s rent and threw a
party in her honor at the luxurious Saint Francis Drake Hotel. Her last days in
SF she spent amongst a fan base who admired and loved her. San Francisco was a
placed where the twins’ eccentricities were celebrated and honored and there
will never be another pair like them.
This long form of digital
journalism is something I would like to emulate in my own writing because I
feel it provides the reader with an in depth analysis of a particular story. I
believe it’s important to include every detail when focusing in on a subject in
a story. I personally liked how the author inserted her own experiences, and
through her examples, the reader is able to get a sense of why this subject is
important. Twins have always been a fascinating to our society. There is a
certain spiritual connection the pairs have amongst each other so I thought
that the author’s personal life story was important in her literary quest to
profile Marian Brown. With the use of
visual aids of the twins in SF’s past, the story is brought to life. My goal
through journalism is to also do that. Using framed photos alongside a literary
profile or investigative story is a powerful and effective way of story
telling.
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