NO DAY AT THE BEACH >>>

1:20 p.m.: I arrive on Pacific Avenue, relieved to find a space in one-hour parking. I'm here for Seaside Opera, a performance art piece by A K Mimi Allin, aka ThePoetessAtGreenLake.blogspot.com. She promises a 10-15 minute celebration of "sea-inspired operas" in Tollefson Plaza. Aha, I think: Idomeneo. I sang "Placido è il mar" back in college choir. Andiamo! Seaside Opera is scheduled to begin at 2 p.m.  Allin puts the finishing touches on a rickety lifeguard station. It's 90 degrees but feels hotter.

1:30 p.m.: I stroll through James Sinding's installation Letters, which consists of hundreds of wooden, multicolored alphabetic letters distributed on the plaza steps. The artist encourages us to arrange these letters into meaningful phrases.  Thus far the height of our ingenuity appears to be first names, "LOVE YOU MOM," and "PANTS ON THE GROUND."

1:45 p.m.: Allin puts on an LP of tango music as played on the accordion. She finishes arranging her space and drives away to change clothes. The lifeguard station stands empty, ringed by beach paraphernalia including floaties and plastic lobsters.

1:50 p.m.: Two pubescent sk8er bois commence flipping 360s just as loud as they possibly can five feet from Allin's set.

2:05 p.m.: Allin returns to gaze at the skaters, willing them, it seems, to take up residence elsewhere. They're not very good, and a botched move launches a skateboard at our photographer's leg. I retrieve the board and approach the skaters. "Hey, there," I smile, "how ‘bout you give her fifteen minutes of silence so I don't have to throw your board into traffic?  Cool?" The skater is taken aback by this and reconvenes with his buddy at a nearby table.

2:08 p.m.: Mindful of expensive parking infractions, I introduce myself to Allin and ask if she'll be starting soon. "At 2," she assures me. "It's 2 o'clock now." It isn't. I'm looking at my cell phone. It's 2:08.  I shrug and back away.

2:09 p.m.: Allin loads water pistols from a pail.  She waves lazily at the skaters, then aims a spritz at my notebook and me. She misses.

2:10 p.m.: She approaches the skaters and hands them loaded water pistols.  They're delighted by this and immediately faux-murder each other. Allin chases them around the plaza, sometimes threatening to splash them with the remnants in the pail. Are they plants? I can't tell. They seem as confused by her behavior as I am, but hey: Free weapons.

2:13 p.m.: Allin climbs the plaza steps, changes the LP to "Ride of the Valkyries," and dances about like a contestant on So You Think You're a Ballerina.  "Theme music!" cry the skaters, who continue to pester and shoot her.

2:17 p.m.: "Ride of the Valkyries" repeats. This Wagnerian scene, by the way, is set on a mountain, not a beach. Allin salutes the horizon. She somehow accomplishes this without appearing touched in the head.

2:20 p.m.: Allin retrieves her pail of water and schleps away. I don't know if the skaters were part of the act. I'm not convinced the act is over. I'm not 100 percent sure it's begun. But I am about to get a ticket, so I run for my car.

This is the part where I'm told I don't get performance art.  Still, what might be dismissed as "flyweight" and/or "masturbatory" can become "unpolished" or "charmingly goofy" when it's free.

Seaside Opera

Through Aug. 21, every half hour on the half-hour, 2-7 p.m., Free
Tollefson Plaza, Pacific Ave. at South 17^th Street, Tacoma
part of Spaceworks Tacoma

LINK: More Seaside Opera photos in our Photo Hot Spot

LINK: Spaceworks in the windows