The Entertainer
Before you can make it into the Sleazy Back Alley, you're accosted by a ragtag group of orphans from the Wrong Side of the Tracks. You pause briefly to try and remember if you've ever seen a group of orphans that wasn't ragtag, but that train of thought goes nowhere fast.
"Put on a puppet show for us!" cry the orphans. "Please!" They point to a nearby... er... puppet show booth. Whatever those things are called.
Never one to miss an opportunity to corrupt the youth of Loathing, you duck inside the booth and prepare for your show. But what kind of show will it be?
| Put on a classical tragedy |
You put on a puppet show in which you share with the orphans the story of Knobcrates, the greatest of the Knob Goblin philosophers of the Days of Yore.
The play illustrates how Knobcrates spent his life in the pursuit of wisdom, and preferred to demonstrate that wisdom by arguing with everybody he met. In his later years, he was finally executed by his fed-up countrymen.
The play teaches the orphans two important lessons -- that education is ultimately futile, and that nobody likes a smartass. The tears of enlightenment in their filthy eyes warm your heart.
| You gain 4-5 Sarcasm. |
| Do a musical, instead |
You put on a brief musical in which two itinerant gangs of Knob Goblins, the Sharks and the Jets, resolve their differences via carefully choreographed street fights.
The play isn't very good, and your singing is even worse, but the fight sequences leave your fingers both stronger and nimbler.
| You gain 2-4 Chutzpah. |
| You gain 2-4 Strongness. |
| Try for a science-fiction double feature |
You put on a play in which futuristic cyborg warriors fight with laser beams in an effort to free themselves from their cyborg overlords, while a rogue group of cyborg dissidents use laser beams to wage their own battles against a group of cyborgs that they created and that unexpectedly revolted and turned against them. Unfortunately, the special effects consist entirely of you making *pew pew* noises with your mouth, and the show, left to succeed only on the strength of its plot, is a miserable failure.
The orphans, feeling sorry for you, pool their meager money and give it to you to help you look for a new job.
 | You gain 15 Meat. |
You put on a play in which futuristic cyborg warriors fight with laser beams in an effort to free themselves from their cyborg overlords, while a rogue group of cyborg dissidents use laser beams to wage their own battles against a group of cyborgs that they created and that unexpectedly revolted and turned against them.
Providing dazzling special effects for the show gives you an excellent opportunity to practice your magic, and the show receives rave reviews from the orphans.
| You gain 15 Meat. |
| You gain 6-8 Magicalness. |
| Introduce them to avant-garde |
You decide to introduce the orphans to the concept of an avant-garde puppet show.
You sneak out of the booth, leaving them sitting there for twenty minutes waiting for the show to start, when in fact the show started the moment you left...
How avant-garde!
Occurs at The Sleazy Back Alley.
Notes
- Choosing Introduce them to avant-garde does not consume an Adventure.
References
- The title possibly alludes to "The Entertainer", a famous rag-time song written by Scott Joplin. "Rag-time" sounds like the "ragtag" orphans.
- The lesson "Nobody likes a smartass" is possibly a reference to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In the book, the man who discovered how to make an Infinite Improbability Drive work was lynched by an angry mob "who realized the one thing they can't stand is a smartass".
- "Science Fiction Double Feature" is the opening song from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
- The "Science Fiction Double Feature" stories sound like the plots to the Matrix movies and Battlestar Galactica TV series, but with every party being a cyborg and fighting with laser beams.
- The plot listed under "Do a musical, instead" is a direct reference to West Side Story.
- The philosopher Knobcrates is a reference to the Greek philosopher Socrates.
