Sometimes there’s an obvious subject for this column, such as the three music festivals I wrote about last week.

But sometimes there isn’t. Instead there are a bunch of art opportunities that run counter to the big event, which this weekend is the annual World’s Fair in Tunbridge.

For those not drawn to Ferris wheels, funnel cakes and horse pulls, there’s a surprising number of interesting events elsewhere.

For instance, Lebanon Congregational Church, next to the once and future downtown fire station, will be a busy place. First, the Anonymous Coffeehouse starts its season Friday evening at 7:30 with performances by Massachusetts-based singer-songwriter Jake Klar; If You Must Know, the Celtic duo of harpist Rachel Clemente and piper and guitarist Dan Houghton; and Green Heron, which merges fiddle, banjo and mandolin with country harmony vocals.

The beauty of the coffeehouse is that it’s free, including baked goods and non-alcoholic beverages. For more info, go to anoncoffee.org.

Also at Lebanon Congregational Church, Upper Valley Baroque presents two performances, at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Saturday, of what sounds like an appealing program of French chamber music for winds and strings.

The twist is that the program will outline the development of wind instruments in the court of Louis XIV and their influence on composition across Europe. So in addition to playing music by Couperin, Lully, Telemann and others, the six musicians also will talk about and demonstrate a bit more than is customary in a performance.

UV Baroque has made a mission of performing Baroque music on period instruments, and this looks to me like a chance to discover what it’s all about in a more inviting setting than at a larger orchestral performance. Tickets ($35 to $45, free for students) are available at uppervalleybaroque.org or at the door.

Theater before the deluge

The Upper Valley’s theater season won’t start in earnest until later this month, but two productions of note reach local stages this weekend.

Parish Players opens a production of Eugene Ionesco’s 1959 absurdist play “Rhinoceros” on Friday night at the East Thetford Pavilion, next to Cedar Circle Farm.

Set in a small French village, the play follows residents’ consternation at the growing presence of the titular leather-skinned quadruped among the citizenry. The animal is a giant metaphor for the change of sentiment and belief in a society.

This sounds like a fun, fresh show, as Parish Players continues its post-pandemic re-invigoration. Performances run this weekend and next. For tickets ($25, $20 for seniors, $15 for students) go to parishplayers.org or call 802-785-4344.

And at Woodstock’s Town Hall Theatre, Pentangle Arts presents “Act 39,” a play by Rob Mermin based on his experience of helping his friend use Vermont’s medical aid in dying law to end his life after a terminal cancer diagnosis. Mermin is best known as the founder of Circus Smirkus.

The play is traveling around the state from its base at Highland Center for the Arts in Greensboro, Vt.

The Woodstock performances are scheduled for 7 p.m. on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and a 2 p.m. Saturday matinee. For tickets ($5 to $36) go to pentanglearts.org or call 802-457-3981.

Object lessons

The lineup of artists in the show opening this weekend in Randolph’s Chandler Gallery sounds pretty great.

“The Juxtaposition Show,” which features what its promotional materials calls “collage and uncollage, assemblage, prints, textiles, installations, stamps,” includes a number of artists who specialize in what I think of as the Upper Valley’s dominant mode of art-making.

Led by the late Varujan Boghosian, this area is rife with artists who collect items of visual interest and rearrange them to generate meaning and beauty. I don’t think this fits into an easy category, but “juxtaposition,” the act of moving objects in relation to each other, is as good as any. I could list a few of the artists whose work I admire, but then I’d feel obliged to list them all and that would take up a lot of valuable time and space for other things, such as this sentence.

Anyway, the show goes up Friday, and there’s a reception from 5 to 7 on Saturday. If you’re new here, it’s worth noting that art openings are free and open to the public, and sometimes there’s the added enticement of a glass of wine. The art also is free to view through Nov. 3, with gallery hours Tuesdays through Saturdays, noon to 5.

A hidden empire

In all the talk about wealth inequality, much of the focus has been on the bottom rungs of the income ladder, where wages have stagnated since the 1970s. But if most of the wealth is going to a small fraction of the population, shouldn’t we be paying more attention to who’s getting it and how?

Brooke Harrington has been paying attention. A Dartmouth College professor of economic sociology, Harrington has made a career of scrutinizing global wealth and its power. Her new book, “Offshore: Stealth Wealth and the New Colonialism,” tracks how the ultra-wealthy use offshore havens to hide their gains and keep those grubby governments from making them pay their fair share of taxes.

Harrington will participate in a conversation with Chuck Collins, who directs the Program on Inequality at the Institute for Policy Studies, at 7 p.m. next Wednesday at Norwich Bookstore.

Tickets to Telluride

Screenings of the films that come to Dartmouth College each year from the Telluride Film Festival don’t start until Sept. 20, but tickets are on sale now. For the lineup and tickets, go to hop.dartmouth.edu or call 603-646-2422.

Alex Hanson can be reached at ahanson@vnews.com or 603-727-3207.