Sunday Wake-Ups: Clown Face on Brit Billboard Freaks out Londoner; Circus Owner, Ordered to Remove, Offers Psychiatric Intervention ... Bob (that you-know-what critter) returns to Big Apple Circus ... AND More!

Fun out of the past ... 

You’re half way in the tent.  Leave or SIT DOWN!   The show is now on, so ... if you suffer from any of the big top-induced anxieties, take your pills, pray or leave NOW ...

 
Edgy!  In the wobbly world, across the  pond, of sawdust, spangles, and psychotherapy, latest to amaze is a report of circus owner and ringmaster John Larson being ordered by City of Leighton Buzzard (no, I did not make up that name) to remove posters  alleged to have driven a  motorist  suffering from coulrophobia (FEAR of CLOWNS)  into a "terrified" panic.  To the BBC, said Larson, reassuring a reporter,  "most people were cheered by the clown posters."  But to Mirror Online, he let go:  “I think it’s absolutely ridiculous. There’s about 28,000 people in Leighton Buzzard, and our posters get taken down because of one person ... The battered big top boss (and we thought they have it hard over here) offered free therapy to the whacked-out motorist, hoping to help her  "overcome her phobia."   I have a question, World: Is there a phobia called FEAR OF LIVING ON PLANET EARTH? ...

You don't like clowns?  Well, then, how about a rodent or a rat, neither lurking behind greasepaint?  My demented circus heart cheered by news that Big Apple Circus is bringing back Jenny Vidbel’s half-way-performing live “chubby” South American capybara, said to be related to the guinea pig (shhhh! - really means "rodent"), good old, Bob, who drew smashing  Gotham reviews a couple years back, ho ho.  Also in the act will be "one trained rat."  Jenny’s a wow of a trainer, an American original, helping Big Apple show the world you can go on without wild animals and still pack the tent now and then ...

This year's opus, Luminocity, under wide-reaching creative aegis of artistic director Guillaume Dufresnoy,  took specific direction by Michele Barette, from up there in Cirque du Soleil land, who co-crafted back in 2004,. with Paul Binder and Michael Christensen,  one stunning near-masterpiece, Picturesque.  First frame on this year's outing,  which uncorked over the weekend in NY, goes to 15-year-young juggling  wonder boy champ Ty Tojo.  Says director Barette (who, by the way, was Cirque's first ringmaster),  “he performs as the first act in the show because he gives it the whip of energy that we need.”   Ty is high on my list of Big Apple Must-Sees, along with sly audience teaser, Bob, and the nameless rat.  Photo, above, is of Duo Guerrero.

Discovered by cypberditipy (a word I thought I’d invented - until I found out that I hadn’t): A younger, newer circus-inclined Brit blogger named Katharine Kavanagh,  issuing a nicely affirmative review of my book, Inside the Changing Circus: A Critic's Guide. She, somewhat on the fence, rues most of all my lack of on-site European research, resulting, believes she, in my slighting Euro contributions to the new circus movement routinely linked to Circus du Soleil's global impact ... Am I guilty?  Truth is, while I’ve been to Russian, and lately to China (which Katharine fairly acknowledges ), yes, I haven’t hit the streets of Paris, the lots of London in many years, and there’s a real reason why, trust me here: fear of flying.  Before flying to China in 2010, it had been 31 years since I lifted off for space flight.  Last time was 1979, when the Old Soviet Circus granted me access for interviews In Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev and Odessa ... But I do harbor a wish to go over there and take in a few circuses.  How fun that would be, if only ... Nothing, absolutely nothing like seeing them for myself, in person, from a seat, first fanfare to final blast. Old World, are you still a Bold World?

Anyway, among the gratifying credit Katharine grants me, there is this:   “a breadth of knowledge to the world that is hard to come by elsewhere ... " Ah, thanks, Katharine ...  BTW: on E-bay, Inside sells for from $25.37 up to $60.28.  Who ever buys a book for that ridiculously high-end  price?  I don’t know how these pipe-dreaming vendors do it...

End Ringers: From DC, Guy Palace sending  me news of  new Circus Conservatory of America, getting ready to open in Portland, Maine next year.   Academic arc promising  “higher education with a primary mission to provide the highest caliber artistic education available  in the United State to circus artists.”  I’d suggest trimming that sentence a bit.  They’re calling themselves “the first US-based circus college.” Now there, I liked that sentence a lot more ...  Jack Ryan, on Monte Carlo Circus Festival's failing to land TV coverage over here, “I noted the jury of the recent festival did not include a single member from the US, UK, Canada, Mexico, or Australia.  Good noting Jack.  “I’m not sure that a commercial network or PBS sees the value of running the festival.  Neither does the BBC.” Still, thinks Jack, “it would work well if well promoted.  A French network records and broadcasts it annually." 

 Big top as high art: from Circus Conservatory of America website.

CFA turns a blundering blind eye: Take a look at the Circus Fans Association website posting in tepid response to the Los Angeles city council ban on bull hooks.  The press release, as candy-cotton spun as a Feld handout, extends unequivocal  support for the Ringling elephants being perfectly trained, treated, put through their tricks.  I wonder what the CFA thinks of damming visual evidence to the contrary - not a comment about that.  But then, CFA was born to "fight anything that fights the circus."  At least, they might explain to us how the footage of Ringling elephants being whipped and cursed at backstage was somehow "edited" to foster the negative impression it clearly conveys.  No, this is what they officially state:  "These magnificent creatures are beloved and protected by the circus professionals who care for them 24/7."  Nothing, Kids, is as simple or as black and white as that, period. 

 10.28.13

Sunday Morning with Don Marcks: Fearng a Rival Paper Might Steal Away His Subscribers: "I might end up with none."

He lived in a paranoid fear of somebody putting out a competitive alternative to his Circus Report.   He dreaded every new attempt that came along. 

It wasn't easy just hanging on to his subscribers.  There was a troubling turnover as, when renewal time came around, many subscribers did not renew.  In order to sustain subscriptions, Don would each week send out free samples to prospective new subscribers, drawing from the rosters of the various circus clubs.  This arduous effort never ended. 

This he shared with me in his letter dated June 21, 1987:

"That guy from San Bernadino who is gong to put out a circus paper sent me some ads, requesting subscribers, etc. He calls it Circus Week and it will come out each week, costs $30 a year, or two years for $55.  I sent the stuff back to him and told him I wasn't going to help push his paper at the expense of my own.

"It's about time that I got off the idea of always being a good guy helping the other guy. He can advertise I guess in White Tops and such, but no point in sending my subscribers off to him.  I might end up with none - who knows."

A month later, on July 25, he wrote:

"His ad rates are all $5.00 less than what I am charging.  Also, he wrote to everyone who has an ad in CR and offered them a free ad in his paper to help him get started.... He had a total of 8 [8-1/2 x11"] pages, with only one story ... I could pay someone the money to subscribe for me I guess, but on the other hand I am not sure if I want to pay him $30.  By this time, he should have two or three issues out, depending on how he schedules them, unless he has folded already?"

As I recall, Circus Week did not last very long.  There were others, too, that came and went. 

In Don's corner, his work ethic was A+.  He reveled in getting Circus Report out each and every week, and on time. He stuck to it and eventually  amassed a total of, I am guessing, around 2,500 paid subscribers, but the peak years did not last long, from what I recall.  His average was likely closer to around 1,700.  He used the pricier first class mail, one big reason being  that he did not want to have to annually list his subscription totals.  That would be kept a secret.  Imagery, you know.

Circus Report became his first love, his obsession.  In the end, when he was plagued with poor health and we were no longer in contact, I'd heard he resented the paper but could not let go.  

Remembering our telephone conversations leading up to the launch of Circus Report, when he would call me to discuss his ideas and seek feedback, those were exciting and happy times, indeed.

Ringling Kicked Out of L.A.: Feld’s Millions For Legal Maneuvers and PR Spin May Not Be Enough to Overturn Bull Hook Ban

Kenneth Feld has a PR disaster on his hands.  He has been virtually kicked out of the City of Los Angeles, by a unanimous city council vote of 13-0.  Bull hooks have been outlawed, meaning that, come 2017, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey will no longer be allowed to parade its performing pachyderms into Staples Center.

Location.  Location.  Location.  The ban could not have taken place in a more glamorously conspicuous, incessantly watched city.  L.A. is the epi-center of popular entertainment. The world watches L.A.'s every move.  So, this major setback for Feld Entertainment will have a far greater and potentially more lasting impact on the future of not just Ringling, but of all other circuses -- than it would have had the city council been that of say, Denver, where such a similar ban was considered but voted down. 

There was a reason that Cirque du Soleil, when first venturing beyond Canada, went to Los Angeles, gambling its fragile assets on a make-or- break date there in 1987.   Overnight, raving local tinsel town acclaim put the show on the world map.   Just as now, Ringling’s eviction from LA. amounts to the worst kind of imagery. 

Kenneth Feld is used to having his way.  His father, Irvin, no doubt taught him how to work the media with cunning and force, how to buy the best legal  advice money can buy, how to market the circus.   But, in the end, what the Felds could not market away was damning filmed evidence of apparent animal abuse on their own premises; I'm thinking four years ago, when a PETA operative filmed a line of elephants backstage being lined up and readied to go on.  Hardly a match for the horrific Tim Frisco Carson and Barnes You Tube made over a dozen years earlier; but, together, both unflattering videos serve a complimentary purpose, advancing through time a lingering narrative that is, Kids, not pretty.

Feld claimed  the You Tube was "deceptively edited," and then proceeded to never explain how. Call it hubris.   In a packed L.A. City Hall last week, with a number of celebrities lending their weight to the vote, according to one report,  "there were tears in the audience over graphic undercover video reportedly showing elephants being trained."   

That our nation’s most honored circus institution stands to end up on a cutting room floor will only hasten a long-running movement in this country to ban all wild animal acts from circuses, which is a pity.   Make that a provisional pity.   The jury is still out, as collectively the public makes up its mind about the kinds of performing animals it can comfortably accept and enjoy.

When I think of what it would be like, had I children of my own, to take them to Ringling Bros. Circus these days, the thought of having to explain to them the enlarged photos held by animal activists on our way out -- I don't think I'd want to go.  Why?  Because, there is sufficient evidence for me to consider anything that Mr. Feld may say as pure spin. And that's putting it politely.

Fifty years ago, the public was not armed with concealed cameras, such that, fifty years ago, brutal training tactics could not be secretively captured on film for subsequent posting on an Internet yet to be. 

Kenneth Feld may have to make contingency plans for a new version of his greatest show on earth.  He may have to retire the sad pandering spectacle of an elephant draped in the American flag being dragged out for a pandering rendition of the national anthem.  Of course, he may have no problem skipping Los Angeles. But, how many other cities, yet to take up such bans, will it take before he does have a problem?

This is a huge story, the reporting of which brought to this blog an unprecedented storm of traffic. Nothing like I have ever seen before.  A fluke of blogger stats? Or a reflection of the magnitude of the story?

I’d guess the latter. 

Next: How much pain, really, do circus animals experience?  How telling -- or misleading -- is the evidence?

MIDWAY FLASH! ... MIDWAY FLASH! ... Los Angeles Bans Elephant Bull-hooks; Ringling Threatens to Dump Date

 L.A. to Jumbo:  Not in Our Backyard!

City council  "swayed by graphic undercover video."

Into a concrete world they go, on their way to Staples Center, L.A., 2009. AP photo.

Come 2017, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, if they wish to continue playing in Los Angeles, will be forced to leave the elephants back in the train, unless by that time they can figure out a way to handle and present the performing behemoths without the use of bull-hooks (or any other similar tools), to the satisfaction of the Los Angeles City Council.

The council today voted unanimously on the ban.  Repeat:  Unanimously.

Feld Entertainment:  L.A. is  "kicking us out of Los Angeles."

Ringling, of course, is already warning it won't return without the menagerie stars. Said Stephen Payne, a Ringling VIP PR operative to the Los Angeles Times, the ordinance will have the effect of  "kicking us out of Los Angeles.” 

The issue has been long debated in Tinsel Town, where the Ringling show  is now reported to be the only circus that comes to town with pachyderms on the bill.

This move will only embolden other city and state governments from coast to coast, who have also addressed the issue, to act likewise.

Said Payne, "Sadly, this ordinance before the City Council we feel is just being driven by a small, vocal group of animal rights activists who are against animals and entertainment whether they’re elephants or any other animal,”

To a degree, he may be correct. But, increasingly, the public is becoming more uneasy about crossing PETA picket lines, about exposing children to elephant acts, particularly given damaging You Tube evidence circulating 24/7.  And there can be no doubt that many young people watch the You Tubes and ask questions, too.

Time for the Felds to explain what "deceptively edited" means

Nor have the Felds helped their cause any by coming out to refute film footage that shows a degree of abusive back stage.  "Deceptively edited," they claimed, never, to my knowledge, ever coming forward with evidence of their own to refute the You Tubes.

This I came across in the Los Angeles Daily News  after posting this story: "Swayed by graphic undercover video showing elephants being prodded with the tools, City Council members unanimously backed a ban on the steel-pointed rod resembling a fireplace poker."  I assume this to be the You Tube to which I refer and have referred in past posts on the subject.

According to Council member Paul Koretz, as quoted on CBSLA.Com, "the hook has a sharp spike attached to it that activists believe is dangerous to the animals and say there are more humane means for controlling elephants available."

Thanks to Don Covington for sending me this news.

Johnny Carson, Facebook, and Loneliness

Update, 10-23-2013:  I invite you to go into comments at the end of this posting.  A most insightful experience with Johnny Carson has been shared with us by John Searing. 

photo from Carson Entertainment

Last night, I watched an excellent new documentary on Johnny Carson's life put out by American Master's on PBS. If there really is a deep mystery about the man (that's how some like to view him), this two-hour program, a crystal clear account of the entertainer's life, should put such idol speculation to rest. He was one very shy, very private person who was a great actor before the cameras. Away from the set, he was a chronic loner obsessed with his television career and with a series of easy affairs offered him by many beautiful women, some of whom he married.

Said Carson once during an interview, explaining why he was so shy and ill-at ease at public gatherings, he simply did not enjoy the same comfortable control of situation as he did when hosting the Tonight Show. That's why.

Carson craved a certain love that he evidently could only get from an audience. He was unable or unwilling to try getting it from either his wives (for very long) or from his three sons by his first marriage, to whom he displayed a cool distant indifference. The culprit seems to have been Carson's very own mother, Ruth, a strange heartless Mommy Dearest character who nastily discouraged her son in his theatrical ambitious, even ridiculed him during his most successful days as king of late night. Carson was born in Iowa and grew up in Nebraska. Yes, that's where Mommy Dearest came from. So much for those lionized mid-west "family values."

During his 14-year retirement away from the spotlights, Carson privately and without fanfare wrote out millions of dollars in checks to charitable causes. How sadly ironic are those mortals like Carson who can give so lavishly to strangers but can't give hardly a shred of affection and support to their own kin. The man may have been just plain selfish. In the end, sharing space with his fourth wife Alexis Maas, he spent most of his time reading books, lobbing tennis balls back and forth, and sitting alone out overlooking the edge of the Pacific Ocean, savoring the waves of Malibu and beyond.

Onto the waves of Facebook, and to the hyperventilating media blitz over its first day on the stock market. Experts called the event a virtual flop. And I am smiling. Having watched and believed the searing film, The Social Network, I view Mark Zuckerberg as an opportunistic scoundrel who stole the idea from some college classmates, and then betrayed a few who considered him friends and helped him on the upswing. Zuckerbeg was something of a loner himself, who couldn't get a date and is now setting out to bring the world closer together in the facebook universe.

With every new electronic gadget (make that "toy" if you wish) that comes down the iPike, the average human being may be turning more insular and isolated, and -- worse still -- not pausing to consider the long term consequences to the spirit. The Facebook phenomena arguably combines personal isolation with the illusion of intimacy, and I wonder if there is a danger in a "virtual reality" that may encourage people to settle for safe easy fantasies of the mind over actual social realities lived out in the flesh. Perhaps this rapidly expanding electronic world will redefine the very essence of human life on the planet.

Back to Johnny Carson. The American Masters profile, masterfully assembled and formed, in the end rendered the man not a mystery at all. And I have no desire to learn anything more about his private life, for I think there isn't much more to learn. I'd much prefer experiencing the king of late night in the manner of, as Norma Desmond puts it in Sunset Boulevard, "all those wonderful people out there in the dark," waiting to see the curtain part and to hear Ed shout, "Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's ............... Johnny!"

originally posted May 19, 2012

Sunday Morning with Charles Dickens: The Circus in His Day

I think I have read myself up to the God of letters.  His name is Charles Dickens

Yes, I've been well aware of his A Christmas Carol, which, when we played the recorded version on old 78 records during my boyhood in a darkened room, nearly scared us to death.

Recently, I took on, at last, a sampling of the man's prose.  First, A Tale of Two Cities, by far the most powerful book I have ever read; and now Hard Times.   Mr. Dickens has inspired me to contemplate that a novel may be superior to a work of "history" in evoking place, character, culture, and conflict.  The man's sweeping compassion, his grasp of historical detail, his deft story-telling skills and unflinching nod to the darker side of human nature, making him a searing social critic as well -- what more need I say?

Circus in the Day of Dickens

A minor plot thread in Hard Times emerges from inside a little circus, which the author uses, in two brief sections of the book, to describe ring action during his day. The book was written in 1854.  Here, for your amusement, if you will, are a few excerpts. I've not used quotes, all of the text is from the book.

The circus is coming!
.

...his ears were invaded by the sound of music.  The clashing and banging and attached to the horse-riding establishment, which had there set up its rest in a wooden pavilion, was in full bray.  A flag, floating from the summit of the temple, proclaimed to making that was 'Sleary's Horse-riding ... his 'highly trained performing dog  Merrylegs.'  He was also to exhibit 'his astounding feat of throwing seventy-five hundred-weight in rapid succession backhanded over his head, thus forming a fountain of solid iron in mid-air, a feat never before attempted in this or any other country, and which having elicited such rapturous plaudits from enthusiastic throngs it cannot be withdrawn.

Breathtaking feats

The father of one of the families was in the habit of balancing the father of another of the families on the top of a great pole; the father of a third family often made a pyramid of both those fathers, with Master Kidderminster for the apex, and himself for the base; all the fathers could dance upon rolling casks, stand upon bottles, catch knives and balls, twirl hand-basins, ride upon anything, jump over everything, and stick at nothing.  All the mothers could (and did) dance upon the slack wire and the tight rope, and perform rapid acts on barebacked steeds ...

Comedy from the Stage

The same Signor Jupe was to 'enliven the varied performances at frequent intervals with his chaste Shakespearean quips and retorts.'

Intense acrobatics, father to son

.. a diminutive boy with an old face ... assisted his infant son: being carried upside down over his father's shoulder, by one foot, and held by the crown of his head, heels upwards, in the palm of his father's hand, according to the violent paternal manner in which wild huntsmen may be observed to fondle their offspring.

Bad grades

He didn't do what he ought to. Was short in his leaps and bad in his tumbling.

The horse-rider

The Emperor of Japan,on a steady old white horse stenciled with black spots, was twirling five wash-hand basins at once, as it was the favorite recreation of that monarch to do

[what follows, have patience, was written in an older English dialect] 

The Fame of Astley and his Amphitheater

 

The Little Wonder of Thcolatic Equitation, and if you don't hear of that boy at  Athley'th, you'll hear of him at Parith.

Pachyderms on parade

We wath throw'd a heavy back-fall off an elephant in a thort of a Pagoda

And, finally -- how some things never change -- cherry pie, too!

... in the capacity of a man who made himself generally useful, presided on this occasion over the exchequer - having also a drum in reserve, on which to expend his leisure moments and superfluous forces.

Poignancy in Death at the Cinema: Fruitvale Station

Oscar Grant, who was killed by a BART police officer at the Fruitvale Station during a melee, is the subject of a gritty film that paints an unsparing picture of the lives of too many young black men with little future, much of it owing to their own tragic plight.  We must keep in mind that most were raised without a father, and for many, their mothers hooked

Grant is far from a likable character in the first frames.  After assuring his girlfriend that he is not fooling around on her, shortly after, at his work place on a day off, he goes out of his way to "help" a customer in the meat department, the customer a good looker, making it clear he is and may always be on the make.

Then we learn that, in fact, he no longer works at the store, but was fired two weeks prior for his inability to show up for the job.

He deals drugs to get by.  He has already served time in prison, so you get the portrait.

the director has gone out of his way to build up sympathy based upon the assertion that Grant spent ample time with his daughter out of wedlock to show her affection, and for this, we are suppose to like the guy.

Fast forward to the tragic New Years Eve when, his girlfriend and fellow revelers, retuning tom San Francisco on BART, were hustled off the train after a fight.

Fast forward to the shot that killed Grant.  The police officer maintained he thought he had pulled his taser.  He served less than two years time for the "mistake."

Here in Oakland, though far from the world of Oscar Grants, it was an outrage.  And yet, who knows, maybe this BART policeman was telling the truth.

Having observed, whenever another strike is staged, how all of BART'S employees virtually run the system, holding a Unionized power to shut down the trains and leave half a million people stranded, I have little feeling or sympathy for this greedy lot, and that would include a police force that does not come off as totally professional. 

The end sequence of the film gives us a poignancy that makes even more tragic these Oscar Grants.

Had he lived, this Oscar ,might well have ended up back in prison.  He might have lived out his days selling more drugs and ending up on welfare.

So, in his death, there is a symbolic tragedy that falls over an entire class of people.

Unfortunately, the life of Oscar Grant would never have lived up to the dreams of his mother, who draws the sympathy of outraged citizens.

It's a tale that sheds more light on the vicious cycle of violence in which too many African American men are trapped.

SUNDAY MORNING FLIP FLOPS: Kelly-Miller Cookhouse, a Sizzler ... Octogenarian Student of Trapeze, a Dazzler ... The Kingdom of Feld, Why a Yawner?

Those days of recent yore now seem so golden.

Kelly Miller grillmaster, Jeremiah Cook, posts upcoming menus
Cookhouse photos by Carol Guensburg/AFR

Have a seat, no, make that -- get in line at a cookhouse-to-remember,  it being Johnny North II’s designer meals for his Kelly-Miller Circus family.  As reported  a while back when the show was boating up to Kelly's Island, one Jeremiah Cook (perfect name for the job), having been hired to work the big grill in the backyard, was quoted,  “Mr. John Ringling North himself has told me he wants everyone to be fed — pleasantly.” And on this haute cuisine lot, pleasant means delicious — with a touch of nutritious ...

Rebecca Ostroff, with meals for her family, back to the RV

Chef Cook posts upcoming menus, great way to keep the staff happy and on the move, I’d venture ...”It’s my show time,” said he to the news scribe, who witnessed clown Steve Copeland waking off with “a plate of chicken, rice, mixed vegetables and an extra piece of cornbread.” ....

Story touted local edible delights favored by the troupe annually, from Texas tacos to, up Baltimore way, “Berger Cookies,” the beef adorned with a thick chocolate fudge frosting ... Mmmm, yes! .... Might a VIP ticket to the show get me into the cookhouse?   I want more than a bag of peanuts, Mr. North II  ... Cook is a modern guy, too, opting for the healthy stuff, “lean meats and sometimes fish,” produce at every meal.  Always for the taking, watermelon and popsicles ... And there's Stevie boy, accepting another great meal ...mmm, looks yummmy good, I'm jealous! ...

She’s not young and she’s not retired, no where near ... She’s an octogenarian with oomph to go,  now taking classes at Circus Harmony in St. Louis.   Cheers to the ungroundable Elizabeth “Bunny” Herring, who once appeared as a showgirl in Ringling  rings, but never, per her parents release orders, in the air. She rode elephants, high stepped in fancy frills, smiled a lot (I assume), waved and added luster to the 3-ring spectacles ...

You CAN go back:  Years later, make it six back, came Bunny’s 80th Big Day.  She appealed to Circus Harmony’s Jessica Hentoff. “I promised my parents I wouldn’t do aerial, but they are gone now ... do you think it is too late?”  No, of course not, said the Harmony mentor, and up went Bunny, at last, to grasp a trapeze bar and swing out.  ...

She continues honing her skills, learning more --- only problem being a hearing aid that keeps wanting to run away, can’t stand heights. ... Since then, our La Norma-come- lately has taught Shakespeare to men behind bars, penned a bio now on Amazon, Still Swinging In Wonderland, and wears a tattoo, the message in Latin reading: “To be rather than to seem” ... Ah, there, yes there, the true essence of circus! .. Bravo, Bunny,, Bravo! ... 
   

In the Kingdom of Feld, why am I yawning?  Promise, I respect and am abstractly fascinated by the  man’s genius, he could end up having run Ringling-Barnum a longer time than any of the lords who preceded him onto the lot.  Then why, when I read more about his ever-expanding empire of “shows,” do I feel, how to put this, so underwhelmed? Maybe it's  Monster Jam Truck Show division that fails to excite.

I’m an anti-vehicular nerd, you see, who, ironically, once throttled a Ford Bronco clear across the country and back, flacking for Sid Kellner’s James Bros. Circus.  Those Feldlings are now up to  something called Nuclear Cowboyz, another auto-maniac thrill show.   Now, here's maybe a real thriller for the Circus Division, which these days seems to favor asphalt over sawdust. 

Back down in average ordinary mud, but beautiful mud!  Let’s give John Ringling North II the last word -- assuming he actually spoke the Last Word.   Said he (promise, I am quoting somebody quoting him) “I didn’t really care so much about whether I owned it [Kelly Miller, which he bought in 2006], but I wanted there to be a circus like this — the kind that I remembered as a kid.  And that was pretty much the only way to make sure there was.”   Now, that one line merits an encore, so ...

“In the day and age where everybody watches screens all day long, this is real.”

Real, yes, like Medicare maverick Elizabeth “Bunny” Herring, for whom I have an idea:  Why not apply to Mr. North II for an "honorary"  place in next year's show, rumored to be populated with a number of new faces. You can make "old" "new" again.  Sounds good?  You would surely reaffirm the real magic of what the circus is and, let's hope, always will be.  They could ballyhoo your entrance, "Ladies and gentlemn, children of allllll ages --- A return to the House of Ringling! ..."

Here's a photo, only a week old, of Ms. Herring at her latest lesson with Circus Harmony.  Looks like she's prepping for an audition -- and "just a decent chance, Sir!" -- I can almost hear her saying.

First posted October 18, 2013

Sunday Morning Off-Script Scramble ... Society is Now the Side Show

Now, Ladies and Gentlemen (if I may), that is -- all of you silent voyeurs crowded around my little platform out there, don't be shy! I know you have no patience for the philosopher I once quoted. So, here's this, a new slant with a little rant, I'm about to tease you unexpectedly with some randomly risque reportings. Now, have I got your ear? Hey, what have we to lose? I don't know you. You don't know me, right?

Latest lifestyle trend may steer marriage, what's left of it, closer to the Old West pay-as-you-go model. Couples, some of them, bargaining up front before they say "I do" for frequency of love-making, by the day, week, month, maybe down to the hour. A sexy pre-nuptial would spell it all out, thus giving the male a kind of carnal package he can count on; of course, I'm assuming the she-male to be the passive party; not necessarily so. Some men actually enjoy stress-free intimacy, it's been lately noted. Call it the new digital boudoir, pre-scripted for on-demand performance. Happy endings presumably guaranteed. Whatever happened to romance? ... Credit card by the night stand? A monthly print-out of contractual hook-ups? ... So cold and callous. Yes, maybe there is a fine line between the world's oldest profession and the veiled version.

Everything about sex links back to Big Pharma. And what a boon to thrill pills such a new form of negotiated marital pleasure would be! There's that awkward commercial aimed at medicated dudes wishing a jump-start at the front end of passion's selfish call when the perfect moment strikes and they lack the steel. A warning, as you know, about cupid's magic pill overstaying by hours its intended effect, leaving its users walking lopsidedly in a state of prolonged readiness. I'm not going there, ever.

Say it isn't so ... My heart goes out to Judy Dench, the incomparably gifted actress. "I can't see the person I'm having dinner with," says she, stricken, as was her mother, with macular degeneration (I rarely utter scary medical terms, but out of respect to Dame Judy, here I will). If you haven't seen her in Mrs. Henderson Presents, give yourself a great cinema treat. It's a marvel. "I love my job she says," with no intent to retire. In order to memorize lines, scripts are now read to her by others, among them, her daughter. She's 77, and still on top of her mark.

I'm a friend of losers, it seems. Craig Killborn, whose late night TV show I saw taped on several occasions at CBS, walked away from a promising gig that might have put him in line to replace Dave Letterman. Killborn got full of himself and got bored, and wanted to be a movie star. Hollywood did not cooperate. Last year, he returned to the talking desk on a Cable net, failed to gather an audience and was TV toast in mere months. Tis a pity; he had so much natural talent for late night stardom ...

Onto my next ill-fated fixation: Two young movie critics, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, a contributor to the Chicago Reader, and AP film judge Christy Lemire, put up on Roger Ebert Presents At the Movies, an effort to bring back the chemistry that Ebert and the late Gene Siskel enjoyed. Already history is the one-season old program, an odd and sometimes irritating mixture of the two new bright lights reviewing new films, andtoo much time listening to Ebert have his say, too, and watching replays of old Ebert and Siskel shows. I've never bought the Ebert image, he is about as overrated a critic in my opinion as was the virtuoso of vacuous verbosity, sainted Pauline Kael ... I'm hoping that Christy and Ignatvy find another platform. They are refreshing, says me, a lover of losers ...

Bette Davis, far from a loser, continues to compel and amaze me as I watch and discover her old movies (no, I don't like them all). Last night, Old Maid, a great film, thanks to Davis and to a terrifically shaped script, gripping as it builds around the terrible issue of a young woman being protected from the truth of her out-of-wedlock birth to Davis. Another Warner Bros. classic; what a tough gritty studio! ...

Stay tuned: As I read The New York Times this morning, I may have more. Strictly trivial, I promise. Mr. Krishnamurti is on high hiatus. And I know you don't want brain food.

10.16/13

New York Weary

NEW YORK, library at the Gershwin Hotel. Tables and chairs now buzzing with the ambitiously young, aswim in conversation and filtration, I assume. And me, not too ambitious but vaguely having fun at the back of a near full room on a long narrow table, pecking this one out.

Downstairs in the suave red lobby, they are performing Handel’s first opera. The place is packed. Gershwin clientele shimmer in the hues of sophistication, which makes me not so embarrassed holing up in a place whose frugally appointed rooms are anything but sophisticated. Respectful hardwood floors, I guess; over each bed a huge reproduction, heavily framed, of a master. Picasso, the usual master, missing this time. In his place a fetching modern abstract. I ask room service to remove these monster threats to my sleep (I come from earthquake country) fearing a dangerously short stay should the city shake and rattle or worse ...

Today darkened down into a little party of thunder and lightening, with teasing splashes, and then all was gone. When you get wet in a Gotham summer drench, in an hour or two you are dry all over again, ready to continue apace. I retired to my plain not very well lighted room, to rest, rather than force my haggard body, a pedestrian workhorse, into half price Broadway ticket land. The lure of that Great White Way has finally lost its grip on my soul, as even these discount ducats grow outrageously higher with each passing season. As I have come to appreciate even more that you can see great-enough theater back in your own backyard, yes, Dorothy, back in places like the Sixth Street Playhouse in Santa Rosa, Ca, where, a season or so ago, I was finally introduced to the brilliant stage version of Cabaret ...

City is reliably full of proud New Yorkers, ready to point you in the right direction. The Big Apple has an almost womb like quality. Walking Lexington, after returning from the Big Apple Circus on the F Line and looking for a place called Food Emporium, whilst glancing upon my opened MTA map, a couple of local residents -- man and wife team, it appeared -- asked me if they could help and they did. New York! New York! I shouted. They smiled, proud. I should have broken into song. Where is that old bad attitude town? Somewhere, somehow, the place buckled under to the collective coddling of tourists. One day, they will erect a statue to honor Rudy G.

Typing this out up against a wall, I need only pull a red curtain aside to peer down through a large window upon the lobby, itself transformed into a small theatre of gratefully engaged patrons, honoring an ancient composer. The zeal of opera lovers to me is more impressive than opera itself, I once observed during my only trip ever to an opera, sponsored by a friend hopelessly hoping to convert me, which he did not ... Tomorrow, I’m free of pre-slated things to do. Free to walk and look. On past visits, I’ve strolled all the way to the top of central park on both its East and West sides. What next ...

This time, I might crack a trek right up the middle. And then rattle back down on a subway ride, mostly to take in the screeching opera of wheels against tracks banging it out in loud shouting matches that refuse to be subdued by modern technology. Amazing to feel like you’ve bolted across half of Manhattan when you’ve only covered seven or 10 blocks ... The illusion forever works ... Is this filler or what? To my right, resting on a book shelf is a copy of Crimes Against Nature by Robert F Kennedy, Jr., and sadly I wonder, is he, too, a tragic Kennedy statistic? Hard to keep up on them all. The Kennedy family -- now there's the stuff of grand opera crying out for a composer ...

My sister, niece Lisa and her six-year-old son, Mister McFiddle (my nickname for the kid, his real name Noah) due in on Monday to share a little of the town with me. Am I glad I stayed down this evening. A mild headache is now gone.

Weary of my morosely illuminated room, whilst dabbling on foot into the Chelsea district. I inquired at a very modern hotel as to rates (I could live without Picasso hanging over my bed), thinking how nice it would be to have a cool room not reminding me of the old cheap spaces I rented chasing after circuses and flacking for them on the advance, the kind of rooms I am reminded of when I look at the old austere steam heater in my semi-affordable Gershwin suite (a non-functioning antique, I suppose). How nice would be upscale accommodations, sure, but for $250.00- plus a night? By NY rates, the trendy Gershwin is a miracle.

Library is now closing. They are asking us to leave. End of discretely consumed chocolate chip cookie. End of blog. Not much, I know, but gotta keep up on my typing practice in the city that never sleeps, or stops typing ...