A Ringmaster to Remember

Holiday Look Backs, this from 2006 ...The arena fell dark. The band fanfared up. The blast of a silver whistle pierced the air. We could feel a thrill coming ...Spotlights shone down on a man in red raising his hand with a flourish -- like a magician about to pull a spectacle out of a hat -- and turning twenty magical words into the most important-sounding announcement in the world:Children of alllllll ages! John Ringling North welcomes you to the 95th edition of the Greatest Show on Earth!He was maybe the greatest ringmaster on earth -- the one and only Harold Ronk, who died at the age of 85 on August 2nd in Canton, Illinois. He had been away from the big top for twenty five years, content to spend a quarter of a century in near-anonymous...

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Can a Clown Save the Circus?

Holiday Look Backs, this from 2006 ...A number of producers, among them Kenneth Feld, seem to think so. They are elevating star joeys to the level of what the Wall Street Journal has dubbed "the power clown."This artistically expedient trend began with David Larible landing in the Feld fold. He may have been good for a single-season-novelty. Beyond that, Larible hogged too much ring time and overstayed his welcome by too many seasons. I avoided one edition of Ringling because of him. I couldn't take it anymore. I have always argued that Larible's presence, by then old hat to most circus goers, did not help Barnum's Kaleidoscape; to the contrary, had Larible not been there, Feld might have been forced to engage more acts. What a novel concept....

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