Shame on the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization and American Musical Theatre of San Jose

"Celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Flower Drum Song!" -- claims a shamefully misleading pitch put out by the American Musical Theatre of San Jose. Actually, other than using the original songs, the San Jose group is not presenting the Flower Drum Song created by Rodgers and Hammerstein at all, but the callously deconstructed, rewritten, reduced and reconfigured version by Henry David Hwang, a brazen assault on the original work that got critically blasted in a flop New York revival in 2001.

San Jose and the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization demonstrate brazen disrespect for the legacy of two musical theatre giants by misleading the public. This, in fact, constitutes one of the most deceitful marketing campaigns I have yet encountered.

San Jose's Flower Drum Song has nothing to do with the original or the novel by C.Y. Lee upon which the original show was based -- nothing, that is, if we are to regard plot and character as essential elements that distinguish any dramatic work. The original show was a hit on Broadway in 1958 and enjoyed an equally successful, equally long-running national tour. Evidently, they would now rather mount in regional theatre land a flop than a hit. They're funny that way.

When will the apparently expedient R&H Organization ever learn? Have they not a clue why the current revival of South Pacific in NY is such a huge hit? Could it be because this South Pacific is not a rewrite, but exactly what Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein wrote and gave the world?

Shame on both of you, San Jose and Rodgers and Hammerstein!

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Getting Short Changed in a Ringling Big Top -- Was it Condoned by North & Concello?

"Truth destroys only that which is untrue."
-- credited to the philosophy of Mary Baker Eddy

The remarkable account, by former Ringling ticket seller William Taggart, of an organized short changing operation on a circus long-acclaimed for shunning such a practice, raises questions that deserve to be addressed, if for no other reason than to substantiate as best we can the historical record. Although Taggart's tale refutes everything I have ever read and heard about Ringling history and ethics, I am prepared to face the facts, wherever they may take us.

In his fine article, just published in Bandwagon, Bill makes two key statements that point to an organized operation, if not run from the top down, then one hosted by ticket department superintendent William P. McGough. Most tellingly, Bill writes that, when he was offered the job of ticket seller in 1954, he was “expected” to participate — now, that’s a pretty strong directive, if you ask me; also, that he was told “not to worry about management,” which might mean a lot of things. To me, foremost, it means that management would take no punitive actions and therefore condoned what Bill was instructed to do.

Bill’s even-handed and well detailed account of the training he received from fellow ticket seller Tommy Reale, instructing him that a payoff for the “privilege” was to be passed along “each night” to McGough, comes off as credible. However, of greater interest to me is to what extent the “management” alluded to was actively and knowingly complicit in this operation. I have tried to seek clarification on the issue in e-mails to Bill. Regretfully, his vague and inherently contradictory replies, alluding to what is generally known about grift on circuses of the era, are not as persuasively detailed as his Bandwagon prose.

He claims the practice was necessary in order to make a decent living. He made about $30 a week. His meals and lodging came free, I assume, although he had to pay many fees, including for his bunk on the train and a seat at the cookhouse, he told me in an e-mail; more sweepingly, and here's the real shocker, Taggart claims in an e-mail to me that virtually all Ringling officials knew of various shortchanging activities on the lot and allowed if not sanctioned them. “What did JRN ever do to alert the public in 55 or any other year, and what tape are you referring to? ... JRN was very aware of what happened on the show, but expected it to be kept under control, and so was his brother Henry who spent more time on the show than JRN.”

The “tape” I refer to was this, played during come-in during the 1955 season:

"Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. All reserved seats must be purchased from the ticket booths stationed around the hippodrome track. We ask that you do not purchase or accept reserved seats from the ushers. Anyone occupying a reserved seat must have a ticket stub for that seat. Any person occupying a seat in the reserved section and who does not hold a stub for that seat will be removed from the reserved section. The general admission seats requiring no additional charge are located at each end of the tent. There is positively no extra charge for these general admission seats. Let us also call your attention to the prices clearly printed on the hats of all vendors. Please note the correct price, and pay no more. Thank you very much."

That sounds to me like management warning customers to beware of slippery dealings with ushers and vendors. In fact, it reminds me of what the five Ringling brothers did in their early years when they stationed a man next to the ticket wagon who shouted "Count your change! Beware of pickpockets!"

Curiously, even though Bill maintains that upper management was well aware of what was going, he also asserts, “I never implied there was a short change operation that was condoned...on the show you were not to have constant beefs so you had to cover yourself or a boss like Bill McGough or others would quiet the heat.”

And he also clearly implicates Art Concello when he refers to a statement that, according to him, was once made by Nina Evans to Irvin Feld: "Mr. Feld we all made money when Concello headed the show." I’m not exactly sure how you connect the dots from that comment to a management-mandated short change operation.

Now, if management did not condone what Bill was taught to do, could it be that McGough, minus Concello (who left the show at the end of 1953) found himself on a shaky if not sinking ship and defaulted to (how to put this politely) expedient mode? Or were Frank McClosky and Willis Larson, then in charge, behind the granting of privileges? Here is what I dug up looking through back issues of the Billboard:

The various rackets against the show and the customers became so pervasive that John Ringling North actually fired McClosky and Lawson, along with assistant manager Walter Kernan, in Minneapolis on August 6, 1955. As reported by the Billboard, "North charged that the discharged men had been more interested in privileges than in the show. They denied any connection with the set-ups he described."

Perhaps only Bill knows the answers to such critical questions his statements, intentionally or not, raise. And I hope he will provide them in the same fine detail that distinguishes his Bandwagon article, rather than through vague innuendo and insinuation.


Are we in a black and white world, or one of shadows and hints?

When I sat down with Phillip and Daisy Hall in Sarasota in 1986 while a tape recorder ran, during the nearly two hours we spent discussing a multitude of issues about their years on the show, the subject of grift in general came up. Phil came on Ringling in the forties as an usher, and left at the end of 1953; he had worked on the inside pass exchange booth and in the tax wagon, among other duties; Daisy was a show girl. Both enjoyed a friendship with Art Concello. On many occasions, Phil socialized with both Art and John Ringling North. Here is an exact word-by-word transcription of those parts of our conversation that addressed the topic:

PHIL: Shortchanging is I suppose what a lot of the ticket sellers did.
DAVID: Do you think short changing existed on Ringling, even?
PHIL: A little bit. Not big. Not much.
DAISY: Because they couldn’t get away with it.
PHIL: Of course, there was short-changing. Anyone who sells tickets, now, it might not have been blatant, but there are ways to have people leave their money. And there are, I’ve practiced it myself (laughs). Which is not shortchanging, but I’m sure, but the Ringling show, they were pretty vigilant about that sort of thing, now you couldn’t keep it all out.
DAISY: Yeah, because if you got caught doing it, you got fired.
PHIL: If anything, on the Ringling show, the people made money by rehashing tickets and things like that, which is holding tickets back and reselling them, which the show always paid for, not the public. There would be much more of that on the Ringling show because if you really short changed and they caught up with you, they’d fire you.
DAISY: They’d fire you.
PHIL: They didn’t want to disturb the public.
DAVID: And Concello, I guess, was strict about that, too?
PHIL. Oh ... [a key word; the tone of Phil's voice suggests gravity, not hesitation]
DAVID: He wouldn’t cheat the public, right?
PHIL: Oh, God no. Oh, no. Oh, absolutely. 100 percent. And he didn’t put up with much rehashing if he could catch it.

We are dealing here with a Ringling legacy built on a claim of fair dealing with the public, and I think that most of us can handle whatever truth surfaces — credibly. I have thoroughly enjoyed Bill's intimate inside diary accounts of his years on the Ringling show. So I do hope he will continue in his eye-opening account of his years on the Greatest Show on Earth. If the record needs to be recast, so be it. Until then, I'm still having a hard time reconciling the above-referenced actions that John Ringling North took with the idea that upper management either sanctioned or turned its back on the organized extraction of fees from light fingered ticket sellers for the "privilege" of shorting the customer. Call my inability to embrace such schizophrenia a lingering illusion.

[photos, from the top: William Taggart; Frank F. McClosky, general manager; Willis E. Lawson, manger, of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, 1954]

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Friday Flip Flops: Brother, Can You Spare a Ring?

Digging for the truth over Dragonwell here at L’Amyx, let’s start out simple, and see where simple goes, okay? Rumorhazit (as Billy Barton would say), that John Ringling North II loses use of the Kelly Miller Circus title end of the season. Not anywhere near, says show manager Jim Royal. “The title came with the corporation, so we have it permanently. Like so many rumors, I have no idea why it started.” So there! Now, as for whatever became of that Feld Entertainment lawsuit against JRN II daring to flaunt his family name on show property, all I could extract from Sir Royal was this: “It was settled to the satisfaction of both parties,” and what's more, both parties agreed not to disclose the details. SO, we are free, for what it’s worth, to rumorize away. I must have been onto something, noticing “John R. North II Presents” on the program magazine cover and surmising it to be the work an intricate treaty ... And yet North’s full name appears in less conspicuous locations here and there, and I’ve heard it still graces the trucks. In tortured legalese, here's my summation: "Counseling lawyers stipulate variable truncations of contested name contingent upon contextual relationships to contractually mandated key words, henceforth pursuant to and as follows" ... All in all, looks like JRN II won some key wiggle room to flaunt away.

More bothersome are the revelations in Bandwagon about a structured short-changing operation on Big Bertha that allegedly flourished in the last canvas days. I earlier wondered what part the great late Art Concello may have played in this lucky boy racket. Turns out he wasn’t around when young William Taggart was tutored inside a bar by a light fingered pro on how to move money along ... Taggart’s commendable confession, you see, was unfortunately laid out in such a way (unintentionally so) as to make it appear that he was indoctrinated in 1953. No, the year was 1954. Mr. C. was gone. Until evidence surfaces to the contrary, I’m standing by what Phillip Hall , who worked the inside pass exchange booth, told me about Concello’s aversion to customers getting the Ben Davenport treatment ... And I’ve got much more about this sad fractured chapter to hyperventilate over up the road. Or would that be “down the road,” or — in the road?

Sure, it’s not always a sunny lot, is it. Ugly Anti-Semitism, for reasons unknown or unreported, strikes the Circus World Museum, and how terrible to see it happening in sleepy Baraboo. Fires lit late nights. Nazi symbols and slogans plastered in spray paint across the barns of history following similar vicious assaults since June, says exec director Stephen Freese to the Baraboo News Republic. “It’s just disgusting.” Not a word in the story about a motive, nor did an apparently under active reporter ask ... Subsequent reports point to white supremacy and anti-immigration movements in the area.

Let’s let some sunshine onto this murky midway. How about Big Apple Circus’s new talent spread, e-mailed to me by p/r staffer Phillip Thurston. On paper, program looks loaded to excite audiences big time. I see a tentbuster going up: Flying trapeze returns along with more gusto in the air, and riders on horseback! Now, all they need is a neat trio of cute and charming elephants. The band comes down around the ring, which sounds bandific. How I envy you who live on the east coast. Why, oh why, Paul and Michael, won’t you ever haul your sterling goods out to the west coast. We are NOT Chicago. Just stay clear of precious San Francisco — or board your star animals at the St. Francis Hotel and parade ‘em around town in special limbos.

Hard times ahead? Sorry it turned dark again so soon out here. As Wall Street jumps out skyraper windows and DC struggles to prolong America’s strange obsession with credit-diseased spending sprees (when will the entitlement madness ever end?), I reflect on the inherent goodness of hard-working circus folk, who troupe on for the love of it. Yes, as Alan Cabal reminds us. “If you’re in the circus to make money, you’re in the wrong line of work.” When did an actor ever help set or strike a set? When did a dancer lift a flat? Or a piano player move chairs around? Circus stars, when need be, will do that and more to keep the show on the road.

End Ringers: Wade Burck referencing the best opening ever for any circus book I ever read, which is how Henry Ringling North, in his great work with Alden Hatch, Circus Kings (just reprinted by the way) calls the circus “a jealous wench,” just for starters. Carson & Barnes playing Will Rogers Arena in Ft Worth for the Shriners, and Logan Jacot blogging ruefully about reports that C&B “closed today for the last time under canvas with a three ring show ... Is this true?” That’s what they say, Logan. October 5, where the 70+-year-old circus pitched its tent for the last time this year at Tucson, Arizona, could mark the end of an epochal American era which began back in 1872, when the crowds for P.T. Barnum’s tent show grew so large, they just had to add another ring. Now, they’re subtracting rings for reverse reasons.

Watching Circus Osario recently, the minimal experience reminded me of a day at John Strong, and it helped humble my future expectations. I’m ready to expect and appreciate less, ready to maybe invest in a lawn chair and prepare to sit around a topless circle marked in the grass by pins on a simple summer day, and watch young upstarts cavort as best they can. Ready to count my change and count my blessings, and wonder where it all went.

Brother, can you spare a ring?

[Big Apple Circus photos, from top: Christine Zerbini, by Maike Schulz; The Flying Cortes, by Bertrand Guay; LaSalle Brothers, by Bertrand Guay]

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Lost in Film Noir: Dark Passage Through a City of Shared Loneliness....

In so many ways, a movie can pull us into its world and hold us captive for irrational reasons. No wonder nobody can agree on top ten lists. What enthralls me may bore you. So much depends on what we bring to the screen. I’ll be the first to admit that the moody late forties nightscape of San Francisco as dramatized in the Bogart-Becall film, Dark Passage, grabs hold of my soul like the city once did in my youth. In it are so many lonely little people living out their lives in quiet little studio apartments inside tall buildings crowded together on tall foggy hills. And when I see a neon sign spelling Fosters Restaurant, I recall busing dishes there — before the city’s subtle sophistication gave way to the in-your-face crowd. Before cable cars hitting the turntable at Market and Powell, when only a few local residents waited to board them, became just another tourist attraction in Disneyland by the Bay.

Dark Passage takes escaped San Quentin prisoner Vincent Parry, played by Humphrey Bogart, into a city of sympathetic loners and opportunists, none of them attached to anybody. Which makes it a searing portrait of shared loneliness: a cabby with a heart played by Tom D’Andrea; a wry plastic surgeon kicked out of the medical profession, brilliantly essayed by Housely Stevenson; Parry’s best and only friend, out-of-work musician George Fellsinger (Rory Mallinson), who dreams of playing his trumpet down in South America; and Irene Jansen (Lauren Becall), a woman who knows that Parry is innocent of the charges that sent him to prison and will risk anything to help him escape the nightmare.

Redemption: It arrives in promising degrees: in a bus station where a lonely man bonds with a lonely woman and her kids; and in South America, where the two leads — well, you must go there yourself.

There is so much more here — for one thing, the story unfolds tautly with not a wasted moment — which makes it hard to understand why this film was so ill reviewed when it was first released. Surfing the net sixty years later, I find many contemporary fans. Count me one. Another superb film in this key is Bogart’s In A Lonely Place. Casablanca? I’ll take the other two. But then again, did I not mention the irrational viewing factor — Minor scenes meticulously shaped. Minor characters who create major moments. The utter cinematic perfection of Lauren Becall. A superb Franz Waxman and Max Steiner score that knows when to go silent. Stunning views of a stunning city. All of it so sadly perfect in black and white.

[originally posted 10/8/08]

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Midweek Midway Mix: John Ringling North II Tastes Chicago Success; Cirque Du Soleil Lays Monster Egg in Vegas? ... Big Top Bail Outs?

So you want to be a circus owner? So you think you got the goods? So go try your luck in tough fickle Chicago and then see. It’s a town of straw houses or raw houses. The late Cliff Vargas struggled for respect, mostly in vain. Binder and Christensen, whose Big Apple Circus should have done well there, did not. Left ‘em humbled. No, sir, the windy city can turn on your tents like a sub prime nightmare. Kelly-Miller just enjoyed near-full houses last weekend, and that’s something to Ringling about — or John R. North about. (It’s that Feld Entertainment litigation thing, you know.) Nonetheless, JRN II dared to tell a reporter along the road that it was time to return to the family business. “When you are born in the circus,” said he, “you might go away but you never forget.”

Guy Laliberte may be wondering if he’s losing it, or overextending his global ambitions following the rocky launch of his latest Vegas entry, evidently a flimsy thing called Believe at the Luxor starring tv illusionist Criss Angel. Opening night crowds dozed off ... Down the Don Covington chute comes a story from the Las Vegas Review-Journal noting a dreadful reception. London fans flying over to preen for the premiere were left mumbling unpretty expletives to themselves. “Dude, it’s a train wreck,” groaned one. This I think more than ever: Guy Laliberte sold 20% to Dubai because he’s dug himself into a hole, having promised too many venues too many new shows that he suddenly lacks the money to fund. Believe may bear the tell tale marks of a famished Montreal kitty. Or has the dude lost his billions in high stakes poker “derivatives”? Might Canada have to bail out its famed circus reinventer? CDS’s infallible image could erode fast with bad word-of-mouth getting stuck to any of its teflon tents.

Talk about deception, why I like the Bandwagon: It’s unafraid, as I see it, to disclose historical truths, and now it’s Ringling’s turn to be sullied with the onus of shortchanging rituals. In my gut, I can’t imagine the Ringling family ever tolerating this, although surely John Ringling North sensed its sketchy existence; we know he tried up until the final canvas days to root canal it. Anyway, I applaud the courage of ticket seller Bill Taggart and the straight ahead Pfennigs for telling the story. After all, unfair to point fingers at others and give Ringling a Sunday school pass. Speaking of grift, Lane Talburt takes on more of Ben Davenport, whose notoriously crooked and ultimately self-destructive Daley Bros. Circus has always been a vexing artistic enigma to me. Talburt makes it crystal clear how flagrantly crooked an operation the man ran. And another reason why (Norma, please turn away, I love you forever), Mr. D’s shocking addition to the anybody-can-be-honored Sarasota Ring of Fame has reduced that sideshow circle down to junk bond status. No wonder why, when I took a bus out there a couple of years ago, the driver had never heard of the place.

Big tops may be shrinking, not the books about them. Cheering the epic photo spread of The Circus: 1870-1950, Amazon reviewer Jack Hunter weighs this laptop library in at about 20 pounds. Which makes me wilt and wonder, does the book arrive in sections preceded by a flying squadron table of contents? Next in the parade comes Raffaele De Ritis of Italy, with a new tome in Italian, Storia del Circo. 580 pages, 300 illustrations. Sounds like a pocket book compared to the other giant. I think I’d rather learn Italian than take up weight lifting.

End ringers: Water for the Elephants, the best selling novel set in the depression, set for the big screen by Fox ... Big Apples’ latest, Play On!, uncorking to a warm notice in the Washington Post. Show has returnee Guimming Meng, who works a thirty five pound vase on his nimble noggin. This is one of the best realized acts I’ve ever seen. Perfect in form, development, execution and crowning climax. Another item on the BAC bill, identical twin brother jugglers, Marty and Jake LaSalle, set to go their separate ways at the end of the season, one into med school. Why do I feel strangely uninspired? Nobody walks out on the circus, dudes! ...

Thank you Barbara Byrd, for bringing your Carson and Barnes Circus to San Francisco, city of my birth. You turned a Cow Palace parking lot into sacred asphalt for me, for that’s were I will have likely witnessed my last three ring circus if you stick to your downsizing threats. Rues local fan Adaline, sharing my sadness, "I too, felt as though I was watching a moment in history." In 1948, RBBB played the Palace for the first time and turned ‘em away by the thousands. 1955: I saw Big Bertha there for the first time in an arena, the day after the only day I ever saw Big Bertha under canvas. In fact, it was in SF. where I saw my first circus, at the Civic Auditorium (Shrine produced by Polack and Stern, who loom much higher than many Ring of Fame inductees).

Lastly, under Buckle’s big tent (I should sneak in more often), I discovered some rumoring about JRN II only having the K-M title for two years, and then what, wondered one? Proposed another, why not “John Ringling North presents The Circus.” Not so easy, I fear, in the shadows of the Feld lawsuit, which I have to assume, given what I see, has restricted North’s use of his full name. Might have to be “John R. North, permission granted by K. Feld, presents the circus formerly known as R. Brothers Barnum & Bailey.” And here he is in person, daring to visit the big cage with Kelly Miller cat man Casey McCoy. Note to a matriculating tycoon: Not so sure about your Clyde Beatty impression. I see more of a slack wire walker in you, or maybe a little rolly bolly. But, please, don't go near the hula hoops ...

And that’s a wrap that needs a bailout — by tomorrow, Mr. Paulson, or this tent blows down.

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Cirque du Soleil Fans Don't Believe in "Believe" ...

Can master illusionist Guy Laliberte turn a turkey into a long-running turkey? Among seven or eight recent consumer reviews on BroadwayBox.Com for Cirque du Soleil's new Vegas show, Believe, all of them in negative territory, here is one from EastDakota, titled "Terrible":

A group of us in town from Boston saw the Chris Angel show last night. I had a free ticket and I still felt ripped off. It is sad to watch Cirque, which I generally have enjoyed over the years, put their name on something so awful. There hasn't been a great Cirque show in Vegas since "O" and that was 10 years ago. The Chris Angel show sets a new low.
Unlike "Le Reve" or "Ka" or some of the other Cirque-like shows that started bad but
they have tinkered with and made fairly good, the Chris Angel show seems unlikely to be fixable because the concept itself is so flawed. Magic is about taking the ordinary and, when it is touched by this one special figure, it becomes unusual. That's why magicians come off as these ego-driven, pseudo cult figures -- for which Chris Angel could be the archetype.
Cirque, on the other hand, is about transporting you to a place and a group of people who are otherworldly from the get go. Things appear and disappear out of no where. The stage is nothing but trap doors. But the extraordinary thing is that even though this place is so strange, you know that the two guys on stage balancing on a broomstick are, in fact, human beings just like you. Knowing that somehow these performers have trained and trained and trained to get to the point that they can make the impossible look effortless is why Cirque is magical.
On the other hand, back in the supposed "magic" show, the audience won't be impressed when someone disappears from under a sheet if they know the stage is riddled with trap doors. And you can't do a cliche saw-the-man-in-half trick as the show's climax after you've shown the audience earlier that you have the puppeteering technology to not only make supposedly sawed-off legs writhe around on a table but, back in the first act, dance about on stage.
The anonymous, masked performer who turns out to have some physical skill that is beyond belief is the hallmark of the best Cirque shows. That is the opposite of what a magician is. It's not surprising, then, that the traditional Cirque athleticism is almost entirely missing from the Chris Angel show. I'm sure that Mr. Angel was concerned such demonstrations of real talent would up stage him.
The show had either extremely eager, sycophantian fans or, more likely, plants who were just hanging out in the bathroom striking up conversations about how great it was with anyone who would listen. I'm guessing plants since 3 friends went to the bathroom over a 20 minute period and ran into the same woman. It wreaks of desperation. If anyone tells you the show is good, ask them how much of a kick-back they're getting from MGM/Mirage.
I give the show 2 months. Tops.
If you're a fan of magic and want to see a good show, check out "Penn & Teller" at the Rio or even Lance Burton or David Copperfield when he's in town. If you'd like to see something Cirque-like, go see "O" or "Mystere" or "Le Reve."

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Friday Flip Flops: Give 'Em Cotton Candy, or, No, Give 'Em Blood ...

Shame on Me! Should have never taken up the pretentious art of “circus reviewing.” Fact is, were I not the only one out there doing this (yes, I know, I’m not the only one, but still), I would not strike others as nearly so odd or eccentric or strange or extreme. Or, what, so stupidly critical ... When 4-letter hate mail arrives, as it did today, aiming profanity at my 2-star review last year of Circus Chimera, I shudder, wondering how much of this I should allow before civilized eyes ... Must mull it over ... In my precocious youth, as opposed to my precocious now, I once irked a Circus Review reader, who had had enough of my lip. Poor editor John Swan, who spent many a page on my out-of-control teenage prose, must have wondered what sort of a monster he’d unleashed ...

Complained the letter writer, regarding something I’d written in a state of anti-John Ringling North who killed the big top discontent, “if you can’t say anything good about somebody, don’t say anything at all.” Lately, I’ve even heard another strain of reader saying, “If you can’t say anything bad about somebody, don’t say anything at all.” Heck, World of Wonders, they once wanted cotton candy. Now they want blood. Brrr ...

Boyi, a “tea tender” here at L’Amyx, noticing a program magazine next to my Dell, mentioned having seen a circus out in Hayward when he was in high school. Boyi is from China, though he never saw any of its famed acrobats. Got as far as a zoo. Wasn’t too high on the tent show he saw, so I asked him (always interested in cold public opinion) to grade it from A to F. He answered, D-plus. Ouch, am I infecting others? Boyi knows nothing of my subversive background (I might soon have to hire protection when I enter big tops with pencil and pad). He said if the circus had “more flips flops, and more animals” (he recalled a single dog), he would have given it a C-+. Boyi, and people think I’m tough.

When I think of the quibbling though favorable notice I turned out at age 14 of a Polack Bros. performance, I am still amazed at how that one publishing breakthrough may have addicted me. Blame it on Walter Hohenadel and the White Tops, if not the CFA. Never could quite figure out the latter. But then again, who can figure me out. Not even me. Next year, I’ve made this resolution: Of any circus I see that I gave less than three stars to this year, if it doesn’t rank in my virtuous view a half a star more, I simply won’t review it. Call it kindness & Tact. Really, I don’t like being so, well — me.

How did we get here? Promise you, I did not bring this up. It was that program magazine, about which I am about to comment. It’s from Kelly Miller, and from John Ringling North the Sequel, and what a touch of rare class! I’ve grown to expect so little, I had no idea K-M puts out one (to be fair, I’m told this they’ve done regularly, so kudos to you, too, David Rawls). Over the last few years, none of the following shows even offered a one-page handout: UniverSoul, Moscow Circus of Stars from Sarasota, Chimera (during its last year), New Cole (recently) Vargas, Carson & Barnes. Simply inexplicable. I mean, when does one, even entering a puppet show, not receive something?

Royally reporting in, Jim Royal tells me of their pleasure with September biz, which he terms “very good.” Just now, back from tea, here’s his latest: “On the good news front, we had a terrific day yesterday, and excellent business again today.” That’s sure to please the House of Ringling, now traveling with the troupe. Well, if the performance is as classy as the magazine, what a calling card. K-M actually lists the acts as they appear. How novel. Ringling no longer does. CDS does not. This heroic action alone demonstrates to yours unruly rare artistic resolve.

I started out with so much to blab about, and I’m using up my hot air fast. Blame it on the Chinese guy who got intrigued with the K-M magazine. BTW, my one quibble: Why “John R. North II presents” on the front cover? That’s what John Ringling North (the original) was called by his relatives when they threw him out. Why not "John Ringling North II" front and center -- or is North's nephew barred by the Felds from using his full name in such conspicuous places? At the end of the listed acts, JRN II does revive a classy salutation known to circus fans of a certain age, "Thank you and Au Revoir ... John Ringling North II." Nice touch!

And so, taking my turn, may I say thank you and au revoir ... So much more out there to chat up when next we meet: Big top books that weigh tons, the new rage, I guess ... Ben Davenport and stark revelations in Bandwagon about Ringling ticket sellers in the last fast canvas days. I must ask Boyi what he would think if he walked away with not all his pennies.

Call this a profanity-proof wrap, I think, while it lasts ...

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