MIDWAY FLASH ... MIDWAY FLASH ... latitude laliberte ... latitude laliberte ... cirque du launch ... cirque du launch ...

second umbilical will retract just moments from now. there it goes. main entrance start. we have main entrance start. engines at maximum thrust. lift off. lift off of the Soyuz rocket as jeff williams, max aray and guy laliberte begin their journey to the international space station ...good pitch program according to flight controllers. heading for a linkup with the international space station two days from now. good first stage performance being reported. the Soyuz delivering one hundred and two tons of thrust from its four boosters and its single engine. first stage measuring sixty eight feet in length, twenty four feet in diameter. is normal. and everything is nominal on board the soyuz. pitch and roll reported to be nominal by...

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Sunday Scramble Showdown: Saints to Shysters Converge on Midways of Life ...

Oh, where to begin, it is so so hot here in Oakland, almost as hot as a James Hargrove phone room ... Almost as hot as Lillian Leitzel (above) thrilling a packed tent on an Iowa afternoon. Almost as hot as all the New York press paper alluding to a mementos Big Apple Circus artistic power transfer that already happened.. Don’t believe the latter. BAC is moving thru a long and slow, more tepid than hot transition, with founding Messrs. Paul Binder and Michael Christensen monitoring the process every step of the way. You thought the French guy (Guillaume Dufresnoy) was now, finally, at last, officially -- in charge? Wait another season or two. He’s in there, with other eyes upon him. Next year might be his first real year, or maybe the...

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From Homemade Shrine Buffoons to Cheapskate Big Tops, American Clowning Stumbles to New Lows

It was never a charmed path, not for most of those who donned greasepaint, eager to make people laugh under big tops big and small. Many in years gone by were acrobats and horse riders before retiring to take up clowning as a second career. And not on a summer lark. There above are some iconic greats on the Ringling show in 1955. Most of them stayed in makeup for their entire lives, building up household images and taking comfort in painting smiles on children of all ages.Not so anymore.Lately, the situation seems particularly bleak, what with some shows treating comedy as if all you need are some red noses and a few pratfalls, and anybody can do that, right? Or worse still, what with the "clowning" on too many Shrine dates being handled...

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Sunday Scrambler: Cirque Tackles Vaudeville, NY Firemen Carwash an Elephant in Protest ...

New Yorkers getting blitzed by circuses up and down and all around the Big Town: Cirque du Soleil still determined to grab Gotham winter summer spring and fall. Cometh next, Montreal's entry into stage show stuff. They’re calling it Banana Shpeel: A New Twist on Vaudeville, and its hitting the Beacon Theatre next Feb. 11 after a break-in try in Chicago. David Shiner (of Kooza) directing. Cast of 33. Says Cirque big gun Daniel Lamarre, “It is, as the title says, a vaudeville show with a twist.” But don’t count on Gypsy Rose Lee redox. This one’s “a family show with a simple and compact narrative,” and they’re not talking Mae West East South or North. ... Cirque is also mounting, come 2011, an annual 4-month summer splash on the Radio City Music...

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The Incomparable Power of Gran Torino: Another Eastwood Masterpiece

DVD Discovery: Gran TorinoProduced and Directed by Clint EastwoodWritten by Nick SchenkStarring Clint Eastwood, Ben Vang, Abney Her, Christopher CarleyEmbittered retired Ford worker and Korean war veteran, Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood) breathes bigotry and discontent as he observes the neighborhood he shared with his just deceased wife being cut up into ethnic battle lines. He feels contempt for the Catholic church, too, where a funeral service opens the film. His estranged sons, who sell Japanese automobiles, want him to sell his house and vanish nicely into retirement home woodwork. His best friend is his dog, Sally.When Kowalski glances next door to a fatherless Hmong family that has just moved in, he feels yet more disdain. But when gang...

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The New Jay Leno Show: A Tired and Creaky Format Needs Sharper Material, Less Flash and Furniture ...

TV review: The Jay Leno ShowWhile I watched the inaugural Jay Leno Show, I had a sinking feeling and wanted to leave. But considering the historic occasion, my heart resolved to solider on. It felt like riding a roller coaster in slow motion. Every time it took a sudden drop (some drops raising well earned laughter), I wondered if we’d make it back up to the next peak for the next deft or lame attempt at whatever. And how I wished in the end, that rather than Leno, the host had been Letterman.First impressions can be terribly hard to break: The overly active set, lush with color and neon, looks like a shopping mall walk through and seems to compete with Leno himself. He has no desk to call his own anymore, so he sits in a single chair,...

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Jack Paar to Jay Leno: Late Night Grows Younger

"The national broadcasting company and its affiliate stations from coast to coast present the new Tonight Show staring Jack Paar! And it’s all live from New York!”Thus began, back in July, 1957, a rich legacy of late night comedy and conversation. Actually, the inventive Steve Allen came first, and before Allen, a primitive attempt to attract nocturnal viewers called Broadway Open House.When Paar took over, I was soon there, too, riveted each night at 11:15 p.m. to our DuMont television set, for Paar was like no one else I had ever seen. Brilliant and witty, raw and restless and unpredictable. Daring to take risks born of his open-minded political views. His guests did not venture onto the set to pitch records or movies. Or more TV shows. They...

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Ignored by Big Apple Critics, Ringling’s Long Coney Island Date Proves Promising .... Good "Boom" Biz Points to Likely Return

Updated and revised, 9/12: Regretfully, my original posting possibly lent a misleading impression about the crowds who patronized the show. In particular, I implied that a rough element associated with the gangs who helped "decimate" Coney Island made the tent not always the most pleasant place to visit. My report was largely based upon remarks, some of which I evidently misunderstood, made to me in an e-mail from a Brooklyn-based source. That source has since clarified certain things he said. As for the business, he claims it was not so wildly mixed, but "excellent" overall. That is good, if true. So, wishing to report this as fairly as possible, deferring to his on-the-scene account, I have revised this post essentially to eliminate...

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Sunday Scramble, Any Side Up ...

First Draft Reckless ... What hits my sunny brain. Okay, the sunny image of ringmistress Carrie Harvey, more of whose sunny style I would like to have sampled. She’s bound back to her London hearth, there to “finally have a family.” Forget my careless assumption, earlier posted, that she was not invited back to the Big Apple Circus. She was, says she. “It was incredibly difficult for me to turn this offer down, but the big ‘40' is looming,” and thus the family plan. While, I presume, awaiting mother nature to deliver, Carrie will be free lancing on old Europe soil, with, among others, The Nery Brothers, a gala in France, and at the Colosseum in Porto come Christmas. Lucky for us, she’s hoping to make a stateside return soon, “with my...

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A Dragon’s Den Fit for Brits; A Shark’s Tank Full of Hollywood

Tickled by those Brit TV judgesTV Reviews: Dragon's Den and Shark TankPerhaps it was they who first linked “nasty” to “critic.” Over there, that would be in Big Ben Land, they dispense criticism as spectator sport. Over here, they, or their American act-alikes, do much the same as the common man (or actor portraying such) pitches talents and/or ideas, hoping to reap fame and fortune“What will Simon say” or “what did Simon say?” — that’s really what American Idol is all about. Oh, sure, pick up your phone and vote. Nice egalitarian exercise. After each singer sings, who really cares about what the Randy pandy guy or poor dear Paula (now history) thinks. We all turn to that sour puss from bonnie England. Strange, his reactions don’t...

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Barbette

This first appeared on September 1, 2009The name is enough, isn’t it? We all have our rich memories. He is ours for his eccentric aerial ballets and for his wild sense of humor. Theirs, meaning the French, for his gender-bending illusions on a single trapeze that wowed them. When at the end of “her act,” he with a flourish threw his true identity to the crowd, they cheered. And adored. And loved. Among his many friends and admirers, there was legendary Russian ballet impresario serge Diaghilev.Born Vander Clyde, he never received the book that is due him. His career flew high over Europe, and then he fell, and the fall grounded him for good. He grew up in, of all places, Round Rock Texas, future home of pc giant Dell. Soon he was abroad...

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