“Walking aimlessly. Seas of fairgoing flesh, plodding, elbowing, looking, still eating. They stand placidly in long lines. . . . Don’t the fairgoers mind the crowds, lines, noise? But the state fair is deliberately about the crowds and jostle, the noise and overload of sight and event. . . . The real spectacle that draws us here is us,” wrote David Foster Wallace in his darkly comical “Ticket to the Fair.” Wallace was brilliant, but he got it all wrong: what draw us are the churros. Decide for yourself from June 30 to July 4 at the Marin County Fair, with concerts by Joan Jett, the Temptations, Steel Pulse and others, at the Marin Center Fairgrounds. 10 Avenue of the Flags, San Rafael. $14–$16. 415.473.7048.
