Monte Carlo Circus Olympics Showers All its Gold on Russians; Silvers to China, Russia, Holland, Italy and Germany; USA's Sacha Nabs a Bronze for Contortion; Hula Hoops Fail to Score; Peterson Peanuts Barred from Event.

Gold Clown:

Desire of Flight (Russia)  Aerial Straps
Troupe Sokolov (Russia) Teeterboard

Silver Clown:

Hans Klok (Holland) Illusionist
Duo Suining (China) Hand to Hand
Troupe Dobrovitskiy (Russia) Aerial Casting
Vinicio Canastrelli Togni (Italy)  Liberty Horses
Rosi Hochegger (Germany) Dogs & Comedy Horse
Wuhan Acrobatic Troupe (China)  Trampoline Risley

Bronze Clown:

Sacha (USA) Contortion
Lisa Kachatya (Armenia) high wire
Anastasia Makeeva (Russia) trapeze
Duo Kvas (Ukraine) Hand to Hand
Gartner Family (France) Elephants

Tom Dieck (Germany) lions and tigers

Robert Muraine, the only other contestant from the United States, won a special prize for his break dancing routine.  

Thanks to Don Covington for this information

New Board Game Takes New York on eBay: Bronx Bidder Brings Can't Stop Shopping to Town

A Big Apple break for the inventors?

 No, they are not real New Yorkers, but family members during a visit to the town.

Rather exciting,  even if it's not the big breakthrough that my co-inventor Boyi Yuan and I are hoping for. someday.  Maybe.  Before board games go the way of the Model T.

To dream is to live.  Beyond the Board, there is the Tablet, and this game -- the mathematics of purchasing alone, may lend itself to a mobile version.  But first ...

Recently, we started offering copies of our working prototype on eBay for auction, one copy at a time.   I didn't take eBay's advice and begin listing at ninety nine cents.  How humbling.  But the price posted was, yes, closer to ninety nine cents than to ten dollars.

At least we are not desperately handing out free copies, a route that can work.  Think roller blades; that's how they rolled out.

In an auction that wrapped last Sunday evening at 10 PM EST (notice how I favor east coasters, there's a reason), I  upped the starting bid by a buck.  Feared it might bring up a big Zero.  We had one taker. But what a taker --

Drum rolls!  Trumpets!  Buyer's address is the BRONX.  That's New York.  Gotham.  The Big Town.  Taxi Driver.  If I Can Make It There, you get the picture.  Just knowing some real New Yorkers may be visiting our invention tingles my timid pulse.

Of course, who knows why it was really purchased.  A collector?  Fancier of novel ideas just to have around?  Secret operative for a game company, ho ho -- no?

Up Against "Brain Game" Mania

First copy back around October  went to a buyer in Baltimore.  All buyers since (well, there have been a few, okay) live east of the Big River.  Not so surprising. I've long held an impression that board games are still enjoyed (or tolerated) on the right coast. Here in the Bay Area, a new bread of "brain game" nerd goes ballistic over the mere thought of rolling dice.  "Random" marks the spell of death and desertion in this circle.  Which makes me wonder, if I might: Might they live in fear of the cruel heartless random ways of Fate itself?

I read that scientific studies of Poker assert that there is even a degree of luck and randomness in that little game. 

But ours is not totally random, no longer.  Not after nice guy Alex Yeager at Mayfair Games (Settlers of Catan), in taking from me an e-mail pitch offered some encouragement, but expressed being uneasy over his sense of the game's level of  --- yes --- randomness.  Which lead to Boyi and I digging in randomly and moving the game to a higher level -- with the introduction of our world famous (soon to be, in my mind, that is) ACT-ON Coupons, held secretly by each player.  They can foster amusing interaction, encouraging players to ham it up. 

Now with each turn, you the player either roll dice or play one of your ACT-ON Coupons as strategically as you can.  You could enlarge your shopping cart that much closer to victory -- or, conversely, reap damage on a rival's, reducing it to  Dollar Store status.

One thing is certain, now, players face many more challenges in the options offered for making moves in various ways.  Decisions!  Decisions!  Decisions!

Monopoly to chess?

Which makes me wonder if we now have something that starts out feeling a little like Monopoly, but can end up feeling closer to Chess.   In which case, maybe we have half-a-brain game?  

As Boyi said, pointing to his own, "more action there, my friend."

Yes, agreed, randomly or not.

1.16.14

Kinky to Thinky: British Crime Clowns Batter Big Top Buffoon Imagery ... Chicago's Cutting Edge Circus Festival Promises Prime Focus on Intriguing Trends ...Well, Have You Anything Better to Do at the Moment?

Strange Case of Jack the Canvas ripper?   Mr. Poirot, out of retirement, please!  There are demented faces across the perilous pond either posing as circus clowns or ex-circus clowns on a vicious tear —  out there scaring the public to death.  Out there, converting "clown" into "criminal."  Ha?Ha?

Cry, clown, yes, cry!    This time, you deserve a full mental breakdown – but please,  do it with a giggling good pratfall, okay?

Creepy clowny-like faces in Britland terrorizing the public.  Some ride motorbikes; others stalk home windows, brandishing, so go tabloid ticklers, knives and even guns ... Which only ads another layer of fear onto an already Old Circus-traumatized public.  First, the abused animals; now, the abusing clowns.  The fear of them alone , here comes that creepy word --- COULTROPHOBIA -- seen as the motivator in this latest assault on Bozo and his like.  Oddballs, outcasts, and perverted performance artists slapping on gory greasepaint to swell the ranks of the “anti-social clown.”

An epidemic on their hands?   Most perplexing, nobody knows for sure who lurks behind the grotesque makeup, the story closely followed on Douglas McPherson's Circus Mania blog..   "This is doing clowning no favors and is harming society," says Tony Eldridge, secretary of Clowns Int'l.    Police bombarded with complaints of people being creeped-out.

Looks furiously fit for a a Stanley Kubrick sequel:   Clockwork Clown?

Wardrobe under attack.  "I'd like to stress that it isn't against the law to dress up as a clown," opined one police chief.

Kinky to Thinky

Another reason to abandon sawdust  for stage?  More and more, younger circus performers are seeking a saner asylum  in theatre venues.  So many festivals out there in a country, mine, that rarely ever produces a top rate circus act, but — hold your hula hoops! — they are stirring up major festival buzz in the city of Chicago.  This could be the Big One.

Heck, if the weather wasn't so damn Damtrak, I’d be tempted to rail back and check out the scene.  Some of the experimental troupes (they all are) sound at least intriguing.   Event  is aptly titled  Chicago Contemporary Circus Festival, and it wraps tomorrow (the 12th). 

Here are a few of the quirky offerings:  Smoke and Mirrors is a company, per reports, "that combines acrobatics, contemporary dance, contortion and 'some serious heart-string tugging to examine the current state of America in the pursuit of happiness.'"  Said to contain partial nudity Oh, yes, if all else fails, give them a flesh show.  

A few others aiming for Windy City acclaim, their respective Big Themes, just for fun:

*  “A mad cocktail of aerial feats, Cyr Wheel and clowning.”

* “Eight strangers who find themselves in a room with no exit.”  Can you imagine them all being hula hoopers --- or Peterson Peanut vendors?  (Yes, Sir Harry, I couldn't resist)

* “A Scenographic composition that explores the duality of eternity and death, and the human desire to survive.”  Sounds like Cirque du Soleil  on One-Drop steroids.  Let me look closer, to see if this troupe is from Up There (as in Montreal, Kids).  The "composition" is being essayed by one Andreane Leclerc.  That French?

Next year, if the festival continues, I suggest stage space for the rampaging Crime Clowns of London Town -- partial nudity not included, thank you.

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So, I'm going to try to post this; photos may follow if I make it this far.  Moving from one PC to another owing to Blogger problems.  Hey, sounds like the perfect theme for a  new circus troupe? 

Beat of the Big Tops, 2013: Looking Backward, Half Dreaming Forward ...

Warning: Many of my blogging tools have vanished or are on hiatus. Perhaps Fate is sending me a Stop message. If you suffer severe reactions to twrling typos and mischievous misspellings, I urge you to skip this post immediately. It may rattle your psyche.

Oh, why not? I had nothing formally brewing in mind, so here goes, in random order, events and trends that intrigue or cheer or depress me:

Feld Forever: If you are a fan of the family’s impact on Ringling-Barnum legacy, you should be pleased. Give the Feld of Felds credit for honing his daughters to eventually take over once he is no longer around. At the top, Nicole Feld appears to be proving that she has what it takes.

Ringling light: John Ringling North II, apparently content to put out a middle-of-the-road tent show drawing on tradition, it being called Kelly Miller Circus, seems unlikely to push his modest creative envelope.

Johnny Pugh’s Happy Big Top: The man continues to helm his Cole Bros. Circus of Stars. In convincing contrast to long-argued rumors by one Sarasota insider that he has forever been trying to sell out, Pugh follows the course of most circus owners: They stay with it and for it until the end of their time on earth. John Ringling (the First), out of power and still striving to regain it, wept in a wheel chair, seated on the edge of a street as Cole Bros Circus paraded by.

Paul Binder’s shadow: Graciously, blogging, he talked up this year’s fine performance and strong critical reception. I hope to get a copy of his book, but I doubt I will learn much. Somehow, I can’t see Paul revealing his innermost feeling about other circuses and trends, even though, among big top lords, he is likely the most educated and articulate.

Big Apple Circus to thank: It’s still in my book a national treasure and arguably, overall, the best show out on the road. It gives me another spring New York trip to look forward to. I can almost find my way on a bus to Queens, blindfolded. New artistic director Guilluame Dufresnoy seems to be the perfect person to extend the Binder-Christiensen mode.

Carson & Barnes dreaming: Okay, you Byrds, take a provisional encore! So rich are my long ago memories of your five ring tents, your crusty canvas, your quirky seat wagons (sooo much fun) that I still long for a great performance from you.

Best Circus Website of 2013: Carson & Barnes. If only they could translate its captivating spirit, texture, imagery and control into a great show. (Maybe they have, okay, but the peanut pitch was missing from the website, hint hint!)

Museums Affirm Resolve, Expansion:We’re talking both Baraboo, now under fresh direction from the youngish Scott O’Donnell with an ample portfolio of circus credits to his name. And of course, we are talking the Sarasota juggernaut, squatters with millions to spend in the land of John Ringling’s estate, originally pledged for art --- before circus conquered a spot and kept on growing. An interesting story. Money and bureaucrats form the perfect storm to trump something so inconvenient as the will of a dead circus king.

Stage & Sawdust: They’re out there, the experimental troupes determined to mold ballet, circus and theatre into one --- and who knows, somebody may one day bring it off brilliantly. Not so brilliant are the ghosts of recent fluffy fiascos from Cirque du Soleil: Banana Shpeel on Broadway, Zarkana at Radio City Music Hall, Iris in Hollywood, and others. Think Spider Man. You say I should think Pippin? The big creative breakthrough? It’s an established musical to begin with (pretty lame when it first came out), this time out, in robust revival, substituting circus acts for magic acts.

Symphony and Sawdust: This idea any better? On paper, it sounds good. Somehow, I can’t see it clicking beyond a few novel overtures.

Montreal Magic fading: For the first time since they hit the states in 1987, I no longer plan to, for sure, see the next touring show from Cirque du Soleil that comes to San Francisco. The last two strained bargain-basement offerings, Totem and Amaluna (sounds like a medical condition, no?), left me Luke warm, and from a circus, I want more than luke warm, thank you. Hard to believe, but, the next time, I will first check out the reviews, since Bagdad By the Bay seems fully capable of reviewing a circus like any other show.

Biggest Big Top Wish: To see bodies in the seats when I go to these shows. Yes, it happens at Big Apple Circus and CDS, and, yes, Ringling manages at least (in Oakland) to pull in a few thousand souls, though hardly what one would call an impressive crowd.

What does the public really want? Recalling the late great Henry Edgar once posing a question: So let’s say somebody puts out a perfect circus, and the people still don’t come?

Yes, Henry, just suppose. Which is why I am not a big top boss, which is why those rare circus owners out there somehow know how to stay on the road year after year after year.

Cheers to them, I suppose…

By the way, does anybody out there know if Cason and Barnes is coming to California next year?

Sunday Morning with Washington Irving: On a Christmas Night Long Ago

How the times and our view of them never change.  Here, from "The Christmas Dinner," in The Sketch Book, 1819-1820 by Washington Irving:

From my part, I was in continual excitement from the varied scenes of whim and innocent gaiety passing before me. It was inspiring to see wild-eyed frolic and warmhearted hospitality breaking out from among the chills and gloom of winter, and old age throwing off his apathy and catching once more the freshness of youthful enjoyment ...

I also felt an interest in the scene from the consideration that these fleeting customs were posting fast into oblivion. 

But enough of Christmas and its gambols; it is time for me to pause in this garrulity. Methinks I hear the questions asked by my graver readers: "To what purpose is all this — how is the world to be made wiser by this talk?"

If, however, I can by any luck of chance, in these days of evil, rub out one wrinkle from the brow of care, or beguile the heavy heart of one moment of sorrow; if I can now and then penetrate though the gathering film of misanthropy, prompt a benevolent view of human nature, and make my reader more in good humor with his fellow being and himself, surely, surely, I shall not have written entirely in vain

Rodgers & Hammerstein on Film; Their Sound of Music Goes Deeper in Treatments Favoring Original Stage Scripts

Update, 5.28.2020:  My lending the impression that the 1999 Brit version by Trevor Nunn of Oklahoma followed the original script with fidelity was totally wrong.  This deception comes through in an "extras" on the DVD with Mary Rogers raving about the show as the best version she ever saw and stating that what we see see was all there in the beginning.  NO, it was not. Turns out, according to an in-depth review of the Trevor Nunn  production by John Heilperm, in  the New York Observer,  that Nunn  "added dialogue" from the original source, Green Grow the Lilacs, upon which Oscar Hammerstein II had adapted his libretto.  I wondered why the film of the show is so long -- a good half hour longer than the 1943 production. So I followed the script in book form as I listened to the movie.  There are revsions here and there; most of all Nunn works overtime to build up the character and menace of Jud Fry by adding scenes.

Recent new film versions of Rodgers & Hammerstein shows introduce the public to darker songs and scenes excluded from movie adaptations; NBC wisely respected the stage script.

This weekend, I see that ABC will be airing -- what I think is an annual event -- the movie version of The Sound of Music, starring Julie Andrews.  Of all the Rodgers and Hammerstein hits that made it onto film -- and they all did --this one is by far the best known to the public at large.  Indeed, the only one of their shows to reach true populist appeal in the cinema.

The other R & H musicals have not endured nearly as well.  Many have been re-staged or re-conceived for Broadway and television, to mediocre results.  The track record is strewn with oddball adaptations. In movie form, like Music, they favor sweetness and sentiment over the more realistic elements that assumed a more prominent role in the stage productions.

Cinderella in PC Overdrive

ABC's 1997 adaptation of  the team's 1957 made-for-TV Cinderella played the PC Card in overdrive, added songs form other shows, gave the stepsisters a strange obnoxious edge -- and hasn't been seen from since.

Cinematically famous for the last musical they took to Broadway

So loved has The Sound of Music become, that audiences convene inside movie houses for sing-along-versions of the movie.  And if Julie Andrews is  primarily responsible for the film's enduring success, she must share co-credit with a glorious set of winning Rodgers and Hammerstein songs.  "Climb Every Mountain" is surely better known today than the arguably superior "You'll Never Walk Alone" from Carousel.  When I first heard it off the original cast album, I knew what they were up to -- let's write another You'll Never.  It sounded a bit forced and labored, and yet, with the right voice in a theatre, it raises the roof.  An ersatz spiritual showstopper.

How will the movie version, due back this Sunday on ABC, compare in ratings to the recent surprise hit from NBC, a live televised version much closer to the original stage show?   Will be interesting.

Sought Pacific Sinking

In a word: Tacky.  Glenn Close, yes Glenn Close as Nellie Forbush in the crude 1999 TV version of South Pacific which she -- surprise! -- co-produced.  We've not seen the return of this dog.  But don't count that out.  Think CABLE. Well, there's always  the Pledge Break Society (PBS), ever on the lookout for yesterday's icons desperate to give it away -- anything for attention.

I remain acutely disappointed that the admirably ambitious NBC Live version of The Sound of Music was so ill-served by Carrie Underwood's woefully amateur acting.. But I was cheered that audiences got to hear two great songs that were left out of the movie, both atypically unsentimental -- "How Can Love Survive" and "No Way To Stop It," the latter a provocative take on early acquiescence to the growing threat of Nazism that looms in the background.  It was composed to be played on a guitar.

My nephew was surprised when I told him that "Edelweiss" was not the ancient folk song he believed it to be, but an original ditty crafted by R&H.

I am hoping  that NBC will return next year with a slightly altered cast, minus, yes, Underwood (would take guts on their part).  I am waiting for Netflix to bring out NBC's live staging so I can watch the last half, which I skipped -- too late.
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 Happy talk ruled 1950 film adaptations

The Rodgers and Hammerstein shows on film tended to leave the darker songs and scenes in the wings -- "A Lonely Room" from Oklahoma; "Shall I Tell You What I Think of You" from The King and I; and the two numbers mentioned above from The Sound of Music.  Hollywood helped reinforce a misleading impression that R&H were merchants of happy talk.

Dead on arrival: The cloyingly hip film version of Flower Drum Song was the only R&H property to flop in moiveland  and generate scathing notices.  A refreshing if delicate delight on the stage, it deserves a true Broadway revival -- or an NBC Live treatment.  Here, we behold -gasp! --  the lovely soft shoe song "Sunday" being contorted into an ersatz fashion show dream wreaking of 1950s housewife suburbia consumerism.  An attempted "Broadway revival" in 2002  with a drastically new book by David Henry Hwang was an abysmal flop. Not only did Hwang's libretto have virtually nothing to do with the original 1958 Rodgers & Hammerstein musical (a critical and commercial hit); it had nothing at all to do with the book upon which it was based.  

So it's refreshing to consider other R&H tuners going live before NBC cameras.  For starters, an almost fail-proof candidate would be South Pacific, which proved itself in the most successful Broadway revival ever for a Rodgers & Hammerstein work when it returned to New York in 2008.  The show ran for over two years.  The original script was closely followed.
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Rediscovering Oklahoma in London; Brilliant West End revival  honors the script.

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The Royal National Theater's inspired 1999 staging of Oklahoma,  starring Hugh Jackman as Curly, mined the original script for the darker truths about love and loneliness (and the cunning power of money with regards to) that were always there.  This production did not cavort and caper cutely around them; it took them seriously.  The enormously successful show was then filmed during performance in a manner that captured the stage show as a stage show.  I am watching it again.  I can't imagine any production ever being better than this one, and most would not hold up. My only quibble is the show's excessive length, drawn out by the overly long ballet.  Total running time is three hours; judicious cuts would hardly harm this finely wrought work.

Oscar Hammerstein would oddly like to say, "It's really only about a girl trying to make up her mind -- who will she go with to a box lunch social."  He should have known better, for he wrote every line; it is about two men in a conflict over the girl, Laure, that turns into a nightmare.The conflict rises throughout. 

Director Trevor Nunn's  penetrating hand crafted a harrowing portrait of abject loneliness in the figure of Jude Fry, played to the bone by Georgia born and raised actor and singer Shuler Paul Hensley. His aching rendition of  "A Lonely Room" brought the house down.  And his tragic death made the show as much about him as about Curly.  The two sobering scenes, among others, marked a few of the most powerful moments in American musical theatre history.  Hensley landed an Olivier award for his role.

There may be a new day for Rodgers and Hammerstein, and for other great musicals as well -- if only directors can stick to the scripts and leave their monstrous I-Know-Better-What-To-Do egos at the stage door. This was what impressed me the most about the NBC treatment of S of M -- the network's willingness to go against the movie and defer (generally) to the original 1959 Broadway libretto by Russell Crouse and Howard Lindsay.  It is not all sweetness and bounce.  In the background hovers the looming threat of Adolph Hitler, which darkens the otherwise charming story with a certain gravitas. 

I  would love to see NBC take on Flower Drum Song in the same manner -- sticking to the stage script and staging it live. Yes, a tricky proposition.  Perhaps the show will have to prove itself in a true revival first.  Such a venture stands a decent change to dismiss the hissing critics of the wretchedly insulting movie, itself an atrocious assault on a wonderfully charming situation comedy stage musical. 

This is where the major TV networks can play a significant role.  NBC may have just turned it into one of the major players along the Great White Way's feeder lanes.  Television's embracement of the more authentically complete Rodgers and Hammerstein, has, thank God, paid off.  Keep in mind that when Cinderella was first aired on live TV in 1957, over one hundred million people watched it.  Dick and Oscar must be smiling in their graves.

A South Pacific to Die For

Staged on the vast Vivian Beaumont Theater thrust stage by Bartlett Sher, South Pacific was later aired on PBS in a "Live from Lincoln Center" telecast.  

Notwithstanding all of the above, can NBC, rumored to have more projects in the works, go very far with this complex and expensive underttaking?  Somehow, I don't think so.  Maybe one or two more, until the novelty soon wears off.

Monday Wake Ups! ...Fleas to Elephants... Ringmaster for God to Zippos for Brits ... New Board Game for the Bored ... It's All On the Inside!

Hundred years ago, Flea circuses roamed the land, maybe skipped old mattresses -- better luck in sawdust and spangles, and one of the star miniatures, Flossy, who flossed about for Barron's Flea Circus, at Olympia, fled the show for where?   A mystery fit for Agatha C.  Posters flung into action promised "liberal award" for the safe return of the errant one, said to be of the "piebald" tribe. Did she run away or, as some opined, take refuge in a "thick head of hair." Maybe she found a man-flea and the two eloped ... That fleafull poster (yes a word I fleefully gleefully hatched for this rousing opener -- are you still with me?), lost in the archives of North Ireland's Public Record Office, recently discovered.  Now on display in Proni's headquarters in Belfast's Titanic Quarter -- just in case you were planning a little weekend in Ireland and needed a cultural diversion away from the pubs..

Baraboo rising!  New museum monarch Scott O'Donnell talking up the return of the living big top, fanfaring about canvas being  "the pre-eminent way to experience the circus..." Ah, Sir Harry of Kingston will take heart in hearing such words. He, like many, prefers to watch a circus under a tent.  Into the Irvin Feld Exhibition Hall  will go something interactive called "Caught in the Act: Legends, Myths and Mysteries of the Circus."  Legends -- also the word heading up the new Feld-Ringling opus about to hit the sawdust -- or asphalt -- down there in the re-birthed land of Ringling.  To be called simply Legends.   And, already, it seems to be bringing out a softer warmer persona from the Feld of Felds.  Sir Kenneth chirping to the local press over his undying love of elephants.  Does it so well, hard to reconcile with evidence to the contrary of Ringling pachyderms getting mistreated, cursed at and slapped by bull hooks..  

 

Can you feel his joyful connection?  Wonder if it's real ...

"The first time the elephants come out, there is an audible gasp and cheer," exudes KF.   "It's a sight.  It's a feeling and it ultimately gives you an emotional connection.  There's nothing like it."

Thus Cometh the Holiest Ringmaster on Earth?  That mighteth be Ringling toutmaster Jonathan Lee Iversion, of the Christian flock.  While his boss, Mr. Feld, goes all gushy over the elephants, Mr. Iverson is more and more going all gushy coming out to reporters (or Feld press agents) about Christ guiding his everyday footsteps.  He's a ring barker who "prays unceasingly during the day and has won the respect of the circus' large and diverse faith population by his tolerance for the faith of others." Well, okay. That's nice.  A lot of people are religious, I think I already knew.  Maybe the Big Show is aiming for Born Agains.   How about a rabbi ringmaster to balance out this bible ballyhoo?

About Feld's critics, among them Bob Barker, who allege he's got the elephant compound in high gear and generating lots of publicity merely as a front for insuring "a reliable supply of animals for his circus."  Grants Mr. Feld to a reporter daring to ask, the breeding of pachyderms was "part of the motivation,' adding "but the center has turned out to be so much more," including research his company is undertaking "out in the world." In fact, says he, all of this scientific stuff could prove to be a more enduring legacy than Feld Entertainment itself.  Well, for sure, it might trump the Monster Truck follies division.

Zippos zips zippily on across the Pond.  From  London town, Douglas McPherson checks in, informing me that "Martin Burton says they're playing up to 8 shows a day in Hyde Park, and getting 9,000 people under canvas each Saturday."  That's hot.  But eight shows? Must be an extreme John Robinson (truncated show) or one of those new-age flea circuses. Flossy, come back -- you could rock the tent!

We can't stop trying!   My friend and co-inventor Boyi Yuan (left) and I are now, confidently poised with Version 3 of our board game invention, trying out our  Can't Stop Shopping on the eBay road, auction form.  Just sold another copy last evening, auction having ended at 7 PM pst.  It's fun and promising. This is digital democracy (did I by chance just invent that term? probably not) in action.

....Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?  Maybe that's what Flossy thought when she snuck out from under Mr. Barron's thumb.  Heck, maybe she's put herself up for a performing contract to the highest bidder on eBay. 

Testy Tigers Terrify Rattled Handlers Around the Globe -- Spain, Germany, Australia, to Oklahoma

Just a family misunderstanding?  Aussie zoo senior tiger handler David Styles, in a happier frame, seen here with, possibly, the tiger who became overly affectionate.

Seeing as how the currentl post, about of all things lawn bowling, might not merit a long shelf life, this evening while half listening to the news, I punched in the word "circus" on google, and this is what most caught my eye:  Out of the NY Daily News:

SEE IT: Circus tiger tamer attacked during performance

"Danny Gottani of the Gottani Circus was in the middle of a performance when the tiger leapt at him, wrapping its arms around the trainer and swiping at the tamer."   Hundreds of spectators gasped at the horrifying scene, in a Madrid neighborhood.

Big Cage helpers turned thrashing sticks onto the attacking beast, dissuading it from deepening its vicious agenda.

Gottani hurried to hospital, with non life-threatening injuries. His mother suffered a panic attack over the ghastly spectacle.

The YouTube posting references several other tiger tantrums around the globe, to wit:

Oklahoma zoo worker, her hand bitten by a tiger, blamed for reaching into the cage and "violating his space."

Siberian tiger kills zoo keeper in German   And ...

Aussie zoo tiger handler mauled.  Senior tiger handler, David Styles,  recovering following surgery at local hospital.  During a Sumatran tiger demo, he was mauled by an "overly feisty feline," taking a bite from his neck.  

See what I came up with by punching in "circus' on the google line?  Consider it a token break from the yawn of lawn bowling, where the only attacks are shockingly indiscreet verbal outbursts. 

Sunday Morning Looking Back: Shocking Incivility on Lawn Bowling Green; Oakland Club Fades Away

Perhaps the apprehensions raised in my post below, from 2007, can help explain this preface to it

How I miss the lawn bowlers. Once, the greens blossomed with figures in white, many games in play at once. Now, if I'm lucky, there might be six players, three to a team -- one game in motion. Sad. I don't go much anymore. 

Here's a picutre of some players chatting it up after a tournament around 2010.  The young player, Jonathan, in front of his younger brother,is talking to Jerry, a great sport who brought humor to the greens and should have been the club's leader all along.  You'll read more about Jonathan in my post below. 

What follows below is an item I drafted but held back, around 2007.   The "challenger" referred to, at one time or maybe still the president, may have not been the right leader for the club. The player he challenged, yes, known for being bit of a crank, a year or so later allegedly got into another tense tiff (possibly with the same man), and retried from the club.   I missed his crusty appearance. Sitting on the sidelines, I gathered impressions, and, to be lawn-bowling discrete, wondered if leadership was a tad alienating. Of course, players die or or no longer can play, or move away.

To its credit, the Oakland club has roused a younger crop of players who show up at later times, due to work restraints.  But under the sunlight on Tuesdays and Thursdays, those lovely greens stand fairly still. The  aging holdouts who cobble together a game soldier on, faint reverberations of a once-thriving scene.

From 2007, my unpublished post:

Shocking Incivility on the Green: One lawn bowler to another: “If you don’t like it, go home!”

We don’t expect such rudeness under a soothing late-winter California sun. We don’t associate the gentile sport of lawn bowling, where once they all wore white, with indelicate outbursts.

One player was standing in the sight lines of the bowler, and that according to the rules is a no-no that can lead to sudden forfeiture.  The distracting player moved a little, but not enough.

Shouted the challenger, “Stand in the center, six feet behind the jack.  It’s in the rule book.”

Okay.

Tension charged the air.

“If you don’t like it, go home!”

Ouch.  And all along I thought these folk were so relentlessly polite.

I have watched the game for many years.  There is a certain poetry to it.   (When in Sarasota recently, with my niece and her new son, we spent some time watching the Floridians play — they were that day noticeably less expressive than their crusty counterparts in Oakland)   Now and then, a player will wander over in my direction, hoping to lure me into the club.  Politely I refrain.  I should post a placard next to me that reads “Do Not Disturb.  Spectator Only.”  In fact, I am  the Jack Nicholson of Lawn Bowling.

The game can be fascinating when the players are hot after the jack and take turns claiming it.  It’s all about  nuances.  Look at young  Jonathan (there he is in some photos I took of him a few years ago), who holds his own against players easily seventy years his senior.  His father is a fanatic — they come from another Bay Area club for league tournaments — I view him as the John McEnroe of the game.

A few of the others, clearly embarrassed by his hot-temper (I have seen him throw tantrums over botched bowls), have told me that he has been warned.

Maybe, too, should the man who shouted “If you don’t like it, go home!”

The Sound of Music Live on TV: Music Soars; Stilted Acting Does Not. Rodgers and Hammerstein Struggle Once Again in Labored TV Adaptation.

The Sound of a Saving Power: Audra McDonald

Quick take here, starting at the very beginning, ending up midway through.

How I wanted to like it.  Wanted to be swept away, for I am a Rodgers & Hammerstein fan to the living end, knowing that, with each passing year, their brand of music threatre, so rooted in older values gradually vanishing as society reinvents itself into a thousand -you-pick-the-one-that-suits-you-at-the-moment-relationship, is becoming more and more passe.

The Sound of Music was performed live on national TV.  Not since decades have they done this. I remember actually watching Cinderella being performed live.  A thrill.

First frames of this SofM, mostly following the stage show rather than the gooy film, were thus riveting, just to know they were winging it before live cameras.

The Mother Abyss, essayed with consummate power by Audra McDonald, took stage from the first frame, then came preciously sweet Maria, played by a singer I've never hardly heard of, Carrie Underwood, who can sing, but, sorry to say, can't act very well.  She came across as more the modern Disney woman, both feminine BUT very strong and take-chargy.    Into the Trapp mansion, the female housekeeper was a hoot, so real -- an older actress (still searching for her name) who grabbed my attention and kept me amused with her every move.  Best actor in the show, I'd say!   Stephen Moyer, playing Von Trapp had an edge, I liked. Together, he and Maria seemed miles apart. She, from Pixar; he, from Bergman.  But, I did not stay tuned all the way through.

Nice try, if only she could act: Underwood with Moyer

My bedtime is around 10 at the latest.  I wanted to have reason to defy my pillows and sheets, stay up like a kid, late.   Around 9:30, this SofM was wearing thin on me.  I'd gotten to hear one of my very favorites, "How Can Love Survive," well done and cheers!  This great gem had not survived into the sanitized movie, so for some of you, its haunting notes and worldly words, were, I hope, freshly exciting.  I found some of the choreography to be by the numbers, delivered drill team style.  In fact, overall direction seemed maybe too overplayed, making everybody look under the Captain's whistle.

Overall, TV's take, musically speaking, captured the greatness of possibly Broadway's greatest song writing them ever.  It had a lot going for it, but I asked myself -- bottom line acting test -- did in the Maria actor I see a character or an actor at work?

I saw a not very good actor trying her best to fit in.

When it's up on Netflix, surely I will get it.

For Maria, they really need, believe it or not, as much a character as a looker. Mary Martin was not just sweet; beyond that sunny face were intriguing idiosyncrasies that made her so damn interesting to watch.. 

Would love to have heard Audra McDonald sing climb every mountain. She probably brought down the set.

Still, hats off  to the directors, cast and crew for taking on so audacious an undertaking and bringing it off with class and polish.  

Maybe they can do it again, live.  All they need is a different Maria.

Not a  problem?

************************************************************************

TV Ratings and reception:

The show, described a strong ratings winner, was seen by 18.5 million viewers.  Ratings share, 5.0 at its peak around midway through, sank a little in the second half down to 4.2.  Not a surprise to me.  My brother and his wife, both avid musical theatre fans, gave up on the show around 8:30, half way through, same as did I. But then again, none of us are Carrie Underwood fans.

Rodgers and Hammerstein's made for TV original, Cinderella, telecast live in 1957, was seen by -- ready for this? -- 107 million viewers, about twice as many people as tuned into Ed Sullivan around that time to watch Elvis Presley's hips go wild and free on national TV..

Reviews: I've only casually scanned a few. Some were good. Some, like USA Today, were quite bad.  Indeed, according to the Los Angeles Times, the reviews were "largely unfavorable."   That's not a surprise, either.