Opera Night (insert air quotes if reading aloud)

I thought it was opera night at the Rose Tree Park amphitheater, where free concerts are held through the week all summer long. On this night, members of a community group get up and perform solos from famous operas. I hoped to see a castrato. In the 18th century, around 4,000 boys were castrated annually for the sake of art. Are such barbarous practices still in place? I hoped so. I spread my beach blanket as close to the stage as I could, which merely meant that I could not get up and leave without being rude when it turned out that opera night wasn’t tonight after all. It’s tomorrow, and I’m majorly bummed.

What was playing tonight? A concert band, performing standards, show tunes, and the mandatory George M. Cohan tribute. If you have been reading this blog for a couple of weeks, you’ll remember my previous run-in with a George M. Cohan tribute, which was difficult to escape. This has been the summer of George; I wonder how many more times I will hear “45 Minutes from Broadway” before the end of August?

There was nothing left to do but chill out politely and entertain myself by watching people, because there are often some unusual characters hanging out at Rose Tree Park free concerts. For instance, at Beatlemania last year, I was mesmerized by a woman who performed orchestrated, rhythmic hand movements for her own enjoyment while singing along to Beatles favorites in a piercing soprano. (I particularly enjoyed her hand-choreography for “Blackbird.”) At the fake Johnny Cash show last week, the teenager in front of me performed the Charleston alone while making realistic train whistle sounds by blowing into her cupped fist. But what are you going to do when a concert band starts playing Flight of the Bumblebees? Are you going to jump around and get excited about it? I’ve heard Flight of the Bumblebees approximately 5,000 times before, and I’ve only been alive for just under 22 years. In other words, the audience wasn’t dancing or doing anything weird/obnoxious—they simply weren’t motivated.

I did have one very strange sighting, depicted below: someone had brought a beach towel expressly for their banana. I watched the banana the whole time, and no one claimed it or moved it. I wonder if the banana enjoyed the show as much as I did.

Note: perhaps this isn’t as weird as I previously thought.

I made this picture black and white, because it is a color scheme that inspires jealousy in others. "You WISH you were black and white at this concert, like me."