Midweek Midway Mix ... Cirque du Soleil For Sale?

Ladies of the Sawdust, hold your engines! Just when I was about to salute our new circus queens, so thoughtfully, so thoroughly, here comes a Don Covington flash about Cirque du Soleil considering a bid from dubious Dubai suitors to sell for 2.5 billion. “No,” says the Montreal office to Daily Telegraph reports. "Many rumors and speculations result from these conversations. In this case, it is just that." Still, I felt a minor earthquake rock my battered big top soul, a sincere pang contemplating life without the Great Guy Laliberte. He is the force behind a big top movement that has fascinated, even sometimes thrilled me. ... I’ve looked forward to following his trajectory into the future, especially after his remarkably older-styled and more real Kooza. The man can change. The man is full of surprises. So why those rumors? The guy, did you know, plays poker on a world stage, and for big bucks. The guy is a billionaire, though who knows where all his money goes... Billy Barton, somewhere up there? What say ye?

....Okay, ladies holding your engines back there in the the green tent, have some Golden Flecked Green tea from L.Amyx; I promise a full scale salute once Covington Connected stops teasing me with sidebar traumas ... About which (still haunted by the above), I’d feel the same sense of premature desertion if Paul Binder and Michael Christensen threw in the towel, they too are formidable contributors to circus art .... Same if Lady Barbara Byrd shucked her three rings for a half circle ...or if John Ringling North II, showing promise in his first outing running a real circus, suddenly turned fickle ... One thing the circus has in its favor are big top kings (and now queens, we hope) who do not go gently into any night ... E-mails Jim Royal, about JRN II's daughter, Katherine North, an interior designer by trade who is subbing as manager for Royal while he goes ahead booking, “She is going a terrific job and is a real trouper.” Go, Katherine, go! And tell the poobahs of Dubai you are not for sale, and please, apply a little of your design savvy to that hopelessly stale website that bears the name Kelly-Miller. It is NOT up to Ringling standards. More Royal reports: JRN II is due in to rejoin Kelly-Miller for a spell ... "the weather has been giving us grief on and off since the day we opened.” Tell us about it, and our hearts go out. Biz? “Business has been good overall.”

And where do we go next ... When John Ringling North the original sold out, there was little outpouring of any sort of emotion. Well, he was still suffering for that fateful down-with-the-big top day in Pittsburgh. By the way, in no particular order, Carson and Barnes, slated to canvas up over the Cow Palace Parking lot on September 12 for three big days, will be doing it sixty seasons after Ringling-Barnum first played the then new arena and turned ‘em away by the thousands. This could be the first tenter ever to play San Francisco’s “Palace.” And I’m predicting turnaway crowds owing to lower class grateful families with kids lined up to take in a real old fashioned thrill, yes I am...

Artistically speaking, Rick Faber wonders about the great artwork of Bill Balantine for Ringling-Barnum's marvelous ‘54 side show fronts and menagerie interiors . Surprised, Rick, that nobody answered your querie on the CHS website. I will see what I can send you. Balantine artwork was masterful, almost Dalli like when you think about it, or might we say pre-Cirque? ...

I'm out of here. Fifteen minutes and here comes a show I have promised myself I will watch from start to finish: Celebrity Circus. Who knows, it might end up in Dubai...