Pirates of Penzance

The Savoyards are putting on Pirates this year. Wish I could sing well enough to join in. (Wish I had time to go to rehearsals!)

So I and eldest son took a shift at the Farmer's Market to hand out fliers about the upcoming show. I noticed that most of the folks who took fliers were older, though there was a young woman with a very young son who had just learned "I am the very model of a modern major general." He was a bit shy, so I sang a bit of it for him.

We were next to a support-the-UN booth. One fellow came by and sat down and tied up the lady there with an hour-long almost-monologue. Preaching to the choir is pleasant, but it didn't attract much business to the table. The fellow was mostly sensible: waste is bad, carrots work better than sticks, etc; but he suffered from a few of the usual delusions: people can "evolve" into better natures, people want the same sorts of things from governments, and people unite against a common enemy. (Doesn't anybody read history anymore?) He cut them a check, so I suppose they were happy.

About 9:30 the "edible art" booth opened, and kids were stringing carrot pieces, cherry tomatoes, and other items on wires for bracelets and necklaces. A fiddle/banjo/guitar began enthusiastic renditions of things like "If you ain't got that dough-re-mi," and off in the distance a bagpipe player started up. It was a lot more cheerful than 8:00 when the thin fellow wandered about with a notebook solemnly intoning some kind of "peace liturgy" for one country after another--though I couldn't make out who, if anybody, he was praying to.

There must have been half a dozen people stop by who had played in Gilbert and Sullivan operas in the recent past. The mayor came by, a former state congressman, young couples, old couples--the Farmer's Market is something of an event in town.

If you're in Madison, go by the Farmer's Market. And if you're going to be in Madison in mid-July, why not go see Pirates?