Hold Your Hopes! Here Come the Elephants!?! --- Well, Maybe ...

Holiday Look Backs, this from 2007

THEN AND NOW

1955, the Ringling-Barnum herd.


The herd, 2007


Next year?


8.16.07 12.10

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A Quiz (Please Give it a Chance!): Gaze at This Photo and Tell Me ...

...which of these brothers Ringling would you choose to meet if you had a chance to spend an hour with him ... over tea or coffee, and be able to ask him questions about the circus? (Clockwise, from top left: Al, Charles, Alf T., John -- or you can choose Otto, not seen here, if you like.)

And please tell us WHY.

Yes, I risk another flop quizorama if nobody from my visiting multitude of five leaves a comment -- yet a plight to which I have grown humbly accustomed.

And so I soldier on. And you? Are you reading me at work? If so,isn't this more fun than whatever it is you are supposed to be doing? -):

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America, the Messed Up

Movie Review -- out on dvd

The compelling fascination of director Todd Fields’ Little Children — a suspense thriller that wants to be too many other things — is its ultimate downfall. It is another of those cinematic examinations of a tattered post-feminist landscape in upscale suburbia. Here, it is once again okay for women to raise children and meet in the park to gossip. Here, too, it is okay for a man who aspires to practice law but has yet to pass a bar exam to do the home stuff while his wife, a documentary film maker, brings home the bread. That woman, by the way, has a strange fetish for letting their younger child sleep between her and her thus-denied spouse. Here, too, it is okay for a bored married woman (whose husband pleasures himself in front of computer porno) to go after the sexually deprived married dad at the park. An affair ensues. Oh, yes, also starring is a kinky single man, recently out of prison for indecent exposure to children (though he has never touched a child), living with his protective mother. The strange loner, who still calls his mother "Mommy," is hounded and harassed 24/7 by a retired cop (retired after accidentally killing a boy in the line of duty). Let’s see, did I get all the plot elements? Well, most. The movie enthralls terrifically as we wonder how these story lines will mature. But in the end, the writers, gasping for an operatic climax, bring the conflicts into one crashing intersection that is a little too simplistically realized. And one that stretches character credibility. I found the Hollywood-styled closure muddled and contrived, and it left me wondering what this movie is really about. Something about the boys in men? About the women in women? Well, no, there is the one woman who carries on more like a predatory teenager. Was life always this complicated, or has modern American society, chronically liberated and still unhappy, rendered itself this pitifully out of order?

8/12/07

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Circus World Museum's Hidden Ancient Treasure: The Ringling-Barnum Circus Archives, Forever a Mystery?

In My Opinion

At the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, a goldmine of Ringling documentation called “The Ringling-Barnum Circus Archives” encompass a formidable space at the Robert L. Parkinson Library and Research Center and is technically off limits to researches and interested parties, although special access is allowed on an individual basis. These papers are still owned by the Feld Organization. A long-stated theory is that the Felds fear the vague possibility of something in the heap embarrassing them. That is highly unlikely.

What on earth might they contain that would be damaging to the Feld family?

Recently reinstated archivist Erin Foley, herself an even-handed professional with a Yale degree, labors in the middle of a petty political mess that has been tolerated far too long, in my opinion, by spineless bureaucrats. She appears to be doing her level best to bring about a clear legal transfer of ownership to CWM. But she does not have the power herself to set policy. That would be up to Circus World’s latest executive director, former Wisconsin state representative and Assembly Speaker Pro Tempore Stephen Freese. And how likely is Freese to force the issue? I wouldn’t bet the museum on it. His job is to raise money, and if that means sacrificing the collection to the collection plate, that’s what will likely happen. What is needed is a director with the resolve to deliver an ultimatum to Feld Central.

When I was researching my book Big Top Boss: John Ringling North and the Circus back in the late ‘80s (repeat: late ‘80s), I was encouraged by one of the “readers” (engaged by my publisher to critique my manuscript) to hold off on publication until I could view the Ringling-Barnum Archives, the point and promise being that they contained letters and notes by and about North that would enhance my work. Wrote the reader in June, 1990, “Unfortunately, all correspondence to or from the Norths and Concello will be restricted as long as Henry North and Arthur Concello are alive.” Excuse me, museum, but both Norths and Concello are now dead, and have been for some years.

Had I waited, my book might never have been published. And when were these archives placed on loan to the Circus World Museum? In 1971.

Thirty fives years later, they are still officially off limits.

For years, a select circle of the good old boys (the “reader” quoted above, among them) could lick their chops over special off-hours access to the archives for their personal enjoyment. What motivation did any of them have to share the secret nuggets with others? Greg Parkinson, who for a time, managed the museum, appeared to have been more enamored of advancing some sort of a Ringling career than preserving the integrity of the collection and displays. (The otherwise wonderful Irvin Feld Exhibition Hall pushes chronic Feld fictions onto the public — and if you view the Merle Evans exhibit in one of the older buildings, you will get the impression that he is still directing the Ringling Circus band.) Too many fan-directors in Baraboo seem to have valued Feld appointments over a Baraboo desk job. Greg’s father, Robert L., declined to even answer a few general questions I sent him in 1990 – example, do the archives really contain a significant number of letters written by John Ringling North? In reply, tersely he answered, “They remain secured and restricted.”

Here — and let me make this clear to everyone, I am speaking for myself — is what I believe those archives actually mean to Kenneth Feld. He is what we call in California a “control freak.” As long as he owns the Ringling Circus, I doubt he will ever hand over the archives to Baraboo. Not because he has any reason to fear what they contain but because as long as he has something the museum desperately wants, that gives him tremendous leverage in exerting control (both direct and subliminal) over its staff. And he has pushed his weight around on occasion. Let go of the Archives and his control is instantly gone.

Only Circus World itself can force the issue. Were I in the driver’s seat, I would call Kenneth Feld and say, “As of next Monday morning at ten, your collection is open to the public. If you don’t like it, send over your u-hauls to pick it up and haul it away. As long as it is closed, it is of no value to us or anybody. And, furthermore, Mr. Feld, we are NOT your private warehouse. We are NOT your concessions back-stock storage department. We are a MUSEUM that is highly respected around the world, and NOT a press arm of Feld Entertainment.

If Freese & Foley can bring this off, however they approach the Felds, I will be the first to eat my words and offer them Kudos.

Absurd? Ridiculous? That and more. When people in power sell their souls for more power, these things happen. Even in Baraboo. Time for action at Ringlingville. Time to write letters to Freese, and time to thank Foley for what she is trying to bring off. I know of one person, long an avid volunteer at the museum but still denied access, whose frustration calls to mind the phrase “mad as **** and I won’t take it anymore!”.

I am totally in her camp. In wimpspeak, I would rather not either.

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New Lingo for the “New Circus”

“Fabric” is a term the Circus Smirkus kids, a lively bunch, toss around, I guess to describe the act of working what a Sarasota insider calls “ the bed sheets.” I think this precious act evolved from the old web routine.

Here’s how that same Sarasota smarty described the setting for last year’s Ringless Bros. Circus: “A parking lot.”

Following are my own earnest efforts to recast circus terminology in a more modern spotlight, acceptable to fussy spectators of unmessy, blood-free stuff:

Equestrian Foreplay: Today’s nouveau horse trainers (excuse that inelegant expression) at shows like Cavalia make a point to prove a loving, wholly egalitarian relationship to their ring partners.

Menage Adagio: A threesome intricately related in a series of movements denoting esthetic horniness.

Astro Marionettes: Wire walkers (please pardon that crude term) rigged to lifelines work the safest area of the arena or tent.

PETA Pachyderm: The "new circus" elephant that does nothing. At last, the Ringling chorus girls do it all. Next stage: the Bulls present the Broads.

Bozo Break: A time-consuming audience participation gag designed to save management the cost of hiring real circus acts. (aka: A Larible)

Plank Vaulting: what they do at Circus Eloise, adapting the old pole vaulting routine into something much safer and wider, thus allowing for a great number of amateurs to make the delicate cut.

Hyper-Posturing. Typically, these are the sidebar characters at a Cirque du Soleil show who cavort gloriously during high points of an act in progress. They make a point rarely to look directly at the audience.

The list no doubt will grow as “new circus” developments merit precious news euphemisms. Tune back here later. As I walk the FDA-approved sawdust of a safe new circus, I may be struck by additional euphemistic epiphanies.

And yours?

8.5.07

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Sunday Morning, Looking Back: Big Top Bits: And Astray we Go!

This first appeared on August 1, 2007


From Russia with Lust: Not a pretty story, not for the Essex, Vermont Circus Smirkus Academy that was. Smirkus a few seasons back hired an ex-Russian ring star Vladimir Avgoustov, 56, to coach its students, and he did more than that, at least with one 7-years-old girl during a 2006 summer camp. She was a student at the Vermont School of Circus Arts, which succeeded the Smirkus Academy. Our ex-Soviet ring star, pleading guilty to sexual assault, will spend at least five years in prison. He could be deported. It happens not just in confession booths.

It Happened on Wallace Bros. Circus many years ago, soon after I had joined on as an “usher”(ho, ho, little did I know about “cherry pie”) and one of the joeys was discovered under the seats between shows having a good time with a young female. (On another day, he virtually invited me under the seats, too; I declined) After his hasty removal from the Wallace lot, I was asked if I would like to replace him in clown alley, and thus was born my short-lived career in greasepaint.

Beggars in Spangles: Those once revered Russian circus icons, so mysterious behind the iron curtain, are not so other-worldly anymore, not in the States where they are finding steadier work. Here they run pony rides between performing. Some show up on America’s Got Talent. Did you see the sad spectacle of the Popovichs, descendants of a famed Russian artist, with dogs that delighted the judges one week, then, back the next with too much “story,” resulting in the same judges, no longer entranced, telling them to stick to the animals and leave the cerebral froth behind. Off they got booted. Cold tip to circus performers: Do your hardest tricks and keep those inner narratives to yourselves. Outside of a Cirque ring, the public still expects a circus act to be -- well, a circus act.

Beyond the big top, your average circus act rarely gets much respect anyway. Television fails to capture the live nature of the brilliant beast. Sure, you can perform in Vegas while your “audience” slobbers around slot machines. The Felds have tried in vain to set up circus retail shops in malls. Like a Christmas tree laying out there on the street after New Years, circus is a one-day-a-year holiday. Been there yesterday; done that for a year. Now, go away. The public wants it fleeting — just like it advertised itself for centuries.

Jack Hunter reminds some of us of a certain age (I plead guilty) of how lucky we were to have seen Ringling-Barnum under glorious canvas. And we were. And, no, kids (and you know who you are), it’s not likely to happen again — unless Cirque’s billionaire big top mogul Guy Laliberte suddenly has an urge to revive the golden age. Only could he bring it off, so send him your wish lists.

Small Is In. Even first-of-may showman John Ringling North II figured this out when he purchased established one-ringer, Kelly-Miller. Now as for those (well, the one of you out there) who laughed over the thought of a Ringling running so small a trick --- consider this: Ringling circus founding genius Al, who to his dying day loved — some claim favored — the one-ring show, would likely delight in his grand nephew’s late-career achievement.

Animals Should Floss, Too. Baraboo’s man for all seasons, Bob Dewel, who once upon a time practiced dentistry for humans, was approached by one local vet seeking Dewel’s help in putting stainless steel crowns on the teeth of cows. And what for? “To prolong their life and milk production.” Since Bob had just set up his chair, he was afraid to curry an unsavory reputation so he turned away the cattle crowd. Crowns for clowns worked better, I assume. You might have made a fortune, doc!

And that’s a cow wrap from Oakland.

[above image: Moscow Circus program magazine, 1967 U.S. tour]

8/1/07

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Jango Edwards Highlights Italian Clown & Acro Festival

The new FUNAMBOLIKA was conceived by Raffaele De Ritis,


Legendary icon Jango Edwards (seen here, right, with partner Peter Ercolano) moved from the States to Europe in the early 70s and founded an avant-garde school of clowning.

Also featured at the three-day bash was traditionalist David Larible and an international mix of acrobats from the circus school of Torino.

[photo by Andrea Straccini]

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