Falling Faster than Big Tops: The Circus Blogs

One of the fallen: Steve Copeland and Ryan  Combs

 How lonely it feels, surfing the remains of once-active circus blogs.  Too many of them are now but abandoned graveyards for yesteryear’s postings.

In fact, most of them have died.  Some due to the bloggers passing away, but where is a new generation of big top bloggers to fill the gap? 


* Most disappointing  no-shows, not heard from since last August, the blog of Steve Copeland and Ryan Combs. We know they are still out there entertaining, currently at the Circus World Museum.  They were my favorite blog during their heyday blogging  years when they toured with Kelly-Miller. Steve's daily postings put us on the lot in real time. His candor could cause sparks to fly.  In recent years, he would periodically put out very long catch-up postings.   They were way too long for me to get hooked on.

His last posting, last August, ended thus:

"I think that is about it for now.  I'll see you next week when our summer season is finished and I have my first chance to sleep since may!  Peace!"

I wonder what happened on his way to next week?

* Wade Burcks Circus no Spin zone. gone since March 2016.

*  Doc’s Midway Cookhouse, gone

* Last updated,  December 27: Paul Binder’s blog. A sad puzzling mystery to me why he had not posted anything about what the new Big Apple Circus offered New Yorkers last October.   He worked so hard to keep it going to the bitter end.  The silence suggests — well, no, I had better not go there  either.  There is enough conjecture out there parading shamelessly as fact..

*  Circus Anonymous, last posting -  December 24

Remember Pat Cashin?  Dick Dykes?  Jack Ryan and others?  Many long-gone blogs are still listed on Ken Young’s Circus Links .  It, too, appears to have ceased updating.

I can’t bring myself to remove those blogs from the right sidebar.  The void would be too  painful a reflection of our drastically shrinking American circus scene.(May we once more collectively boo  Kenneth Feld?)

Still open for business:

Jim’s My Days Are Circus Days, bright and colorful

Circus and Fairground Art, rich in art work

Circus blog, a charmer

Circuses and Sideshows, kind of

Buckles blog – He was been counted down and maybe out two times in recent years.  But returns with the help of others.

John Towsen’s All Fall Down 

I am starting to wonder what I am still doing out here on this decimated midway.  Will I be the last one out of the tent?  That would be too chilling for me to handle.

Bottom line: I continue to believe, that without a culture of open discussion  and debate within the circus community as freely exists among other entertainment fan bases and media coverage, there will never be the drive to nurture and embrace  circus blogging.

All those wonderful pictures of past glories can only go so far.