one play, no concert

My business duties on my trip completed, I drove to an outlying town and went to a play. A local but professional theater company was putting on The Odd Couple. I'm not sure I'd ever seen the original play on stage before. Everybody was good. Oscar, who was played by the director of the company, was bullish and lumpen. Felix, a noted acting teacher who recently retired to devote more time to being on-stage himself, bore a strong resemblance to Woody Allen, the more so due to his pronounced shortness. He was shorter than either of his Pigeon sisters.

The theater was very tiny, with five rows of steeply raked seats around three sides. About 80% of them were filled with older people who'd all gotten off the same large bus. The rest were also occupied; what I'd ordered on the phone last week was, they told me at the time, the last free seat for the performance.

After the matinee, a large phalanx of the remaining 20% walked around the corner to the same locally-noted restaurant, and I followed them. Fortunately it's a pretty large place. I had whitefish, a freshwater fish that's ubiquitous in the Midwest but unknown where I come from. Though the parmesan crust was thick and heavy, the total effect was light and tender, an amazing culinary achievement. Alas for what it rested on, a bed of rice mixed with powerfully evil-smelling mushrooms too repellent to touch, plus lumps of lobster rubbery and slimy, enacting all the bad stereotypes about seafood in the Midwest. I wish I'd had the nerve to say more than praising the fish when they asked me how the food was: they're going to be mighty pissed when they read my Yelp review.

Back in the city, I'd seen a listing for a small-venue concert of piano-and-electronics music by Subotnick, Dodge, and some other composers I hadn't heard of. When I wandered over there in search of a ticket, the box office wasn't open yet, but the sound-check was still going on. This was so loud that I decided not to come back.