Wednesday Wacky: Wallendas, Stop Trying to "Fly"! Copeland & Combs, Chill Out ....

Why the "Flying Wallendas"? Seems now that even THEY honor this ridiculously misleading act descriptor. From Jack Ryan, who penned a piece (that I, sorry Jack, misplaced) on the famed wire-walking family for the recent Circus Sarasota, even Tino Wallenda has given in by using the phrase repeatedly on his website, lending family credence to this shoddy misconception. No wonder it lingers on; incredibly the family endorses it! Here's our Big Question: Why were they ever called The Flying Wallendas in the first place? Best answer I could get years ago was this: "flying" referred to their tragic fall in Detroit in the sixties, the perverse notion being that they "flew" off the wire, into the air, and down onto the ground. How utterly stupid and counterproductive for the family to go along with this insensitive characterization. If the troupe itself refuses to correct the record, well, let them fly, if that's what they want. The only member of this troupe I can see truly "flying" would be Karl Wallenda -- from his grave.

Easier to understand are the testy moods of Kelly-Miller Circus clowns Steve Copeland and Ryan Combs, who, from what I've learned touring their blog now and then, do not suffer gratefully indifferent looking customers while striving to raise laughs ... Recently, indifference struck again, from a VIP seat, I think. As reported on the Copeland-Combs blog, a man was "stoically watching" the table act, and he made the fatal error of keeping his arms crossed during the entire bit. At the number's end during bows, the chap haplessly refused to clap, further enraging our young joeys who may yet have to learn to take it on the chin. Now, refusing the reception the K-M joeys believe is due them is a big NO No on this show, kids; So keep this in mind if you plan a visit to the circus of John Ringling North II. Here come's my customer alert: How was the dour fellow answered back? Ryan "jumped into the seating section and pulled a Peter Pitofskay, ravaging the poor man senseless."

What is a Peter Pitofsky? Let me google this and be right back.

Okay, I'm back. One site calls him "famous Comedy Clown from New York." Humm (I'm sitting on the edge of my seat, my arms flailing about), are there also non-comedy clowns? He, they say, combines elements of Abbott and Costello, the 3 Stooges and the Marx Brothers. Let's focus in on that word "ravaging." I'm taking a look to be sure, back in a jiff. Here's the definition: "Plunder with excessive damage and destruction." Good grief!

Ooooooookay. So, let's see, at least I've been warned. And so have you: If and when I do step into the Kelly Miller tent, I will remember to laugh my head off whenever Steve and Ryan are trying to entertain me. I will NOT cross my arms, NOT look stoic, NOT act aloof or uppity or ungrateful or brain dead, and NOT under any circumstances give off any hint of being one of those creepy snide vile sinister opinionated arrogant self-delusional critics. NO note taking. NO pencil or pen. NO searing looks. Hot dog happy. Cotton candy charmed. Snow cone contented. Peterson Peanut proud.

Gotta get back into my inner child.

Heck, if I can survive Copeland and Combs, I can handle the "flying Wallendas" any day.


A gag -- ad for Dental Floss? -- from a Copeland-Combs Kelly-Miller clown walkaround. Cheers to reviving what I have long missed! Promise, guys, I'm laughing out loud.

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Tuesday Twitters: Is that Guy Bleeding? Only Ketchup? Okay, Bring Him Out Here, I Guess ...

Crazy blogging. I get e-mails, oh maybe one a month or so. Here's this guy, told you about him a while back, wanting me to give you his link. Wanting a plug, which does flatter. The website he gave me not then working, so I ventured into another web world of same guy, very bloody and strange (pardon my aversion to clean wholesome family S&M), but maybe it was simulated, maybe I was hasty in cringing and dialing my hospital valet service. Guy got back to me, unruffled, sending me legit link.

His name: BARRY SILVER. Good show name. PA dude. Looking for a ring to hang out in, for applause and $. Talk about muti-talented -- clowning, juggling, swords and neon tubes, et all. He's even a "certified Hebrew school teacher." Only talent he doesn't list is cherry pie. Here's his link:

http://amazingbarrysilver.com/

Now you understand, there is no Showbiz David Talent Agency, and this whole thing is a fluke, so I'm just putting up a temp shingle, to give Mr. Silver a tingle, and producers out there a chance to sample his visual ambitions. The young give us tomorrow, never forget, so who knows where Barry'll be tomorrow. Maybe on YOUR show.

Good luck, Barry! And may you be spared my reviewing your act(s).

Thus ends the short lived career of Showbiz David Talents Scouts, International.

Next stop: Preparing to watch a Kelly Miller Circus clown act.

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Sunday Scramble: Another Circus Museum, Anybody? So Long, Sandra Bezic Watchers ...

Lots of talk about circus museums, some lost to history, some in trouble, some about to open and others maybe about to close ... Let’s start with the greatest flop of them all: Here’s comment guy Jeff Swanson remembering not favorably Irvin Feld’s grandiose Circus World, a spectacular vision born of ego only partly realized that left Jeff feeling stood up: “What I couldn’t dismiss was what wasn’t there. I paid my money and within an hour I was pulling out of the parking lot having seen all there was — not the day I had hoped for. I remember spending a good deal of time reading the display showing what Irvin was planning and wanted the pace to be.” In sync with Ben Trumble’s take on the subject, agreed patron Jeff, “too little too soon.”

Over to Baraboo, still a precarious operation, its fate seeming to be, from year to year, kind of sorta up in the air. Proud as fresh popped popcorn, circus aficionado Harry Kingston recalling long ago floating a revenue-making idea to former CWM exec director Greg Parkinson: copy valued film footage onto DVDs and sell them “Just think of all the money you would make for the museum,” remarked Harry to Greg, only to live through subsequent silence. “Greg said we will see and nothing has ever been done and there they sit, all those donated films that we will never get to see. I told him that would be a gold mine.” Proposed payload left untapped. No, No, Baraboo, keep on getting more old beat up wagons onto the grounds and into rehab for ersatz restoration no matter how many, no matter how lost ... Excuse me, Wisconsin, for venting. I recall the late Don Marcks telling me about tons of donated documents that ended up in corner stacks. You got an extra rare early Ringling Brothers circus magazine, Circus World? Id pay premium bucks.

A more real gold mine Disney might mine when it opens its new three ring under the big top "interactive" circus, now under active construction in the Florida park’s Fantasyland. The Walt Disney empire has the money, it has the marketing know-how, and its has the built-in customer base, which is what our publicly funded museums tend to lack, save for the Sarasota adventure on the grounds of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. They’ve got an interloper's nerve, and they’ve got Mr. Tibbals (oh, why do I keep dropping his name? I guess on behalf of all of us who are jealous of his bank account not being spread around other rings in need ...)

Venice, anybody? If Tito Gaona has his way, and we’re talking fast-fading long shot, he’d turn Venice into some sort of another kind of circus museum. Yes, you read what I just wrote. But the city wants to tear down the old post-tent era Ringling buildings. What’s a “land mark” to Tito is valuable real estate waiting to be developed for profit by unsentimental city officials. Tito envisions a circus bridge spanning the Intracoastal, a mural along the Tamiami Trial (no, make that Trail, though to the pedestrian me, it seemed more like the former), and the great loved flyer Tito Tito can see streets renamed for circus icons ... Why can’t I feel any magic about this minor venue? I recall the building Art Concello built for rehearsals and premiere performances, so Concello clinical. Worse still, the one spooky night I spent in a cheap skate hotel, me the only customer, and how it kept me on the edge of my bed awake through creeping sounds, not a seasoned cockroach host.

I like Harry’s idea. I’d be up for ordering some film footage if I don’t already have. Sorry, Tito, Venice just doesn’t move my imagination.

Now, Disney, that sounds interesting ... Dumbo to the rescue? Heck, maybe I’ll start my own museum, ... And I had so much more down the Convington chute to blog. There’s that kid out there still wanting a shot at the big time, thinking I’m a talent agency, ha! Gotta bring him out here soon before producers who walk this way. And, oh yea, I gotta Kelly Miller Circus customer alert concerning how to properly watch a clown act without it becoming interactive in your face. Genuine kelly-miller thriller ... All on the inside ... Wait for Showbiz David’s Museum of Madness in Mudness! (Sorry, Sandra Bezic lovers or haters, it was a lot of fun having you all in here during the Olympics. What say we meet again? Maybe at worlds?)

That’s a wacky wrap, I know, but wait for my next pratfall ...

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Sunday Morning with Igor Stravinsky: The Architecture of Music ...

"Construction once completed ... there is nothing more to be said ... it is precisely ... this achieved order, which produces in us a unique emotion having nothing in common with our ordinary sensations ... One could not better define the sensation produced by music than by saying that it is identical with that evoked by contemplation of the interplay of architectural forms."

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Disney Florida to Offer "Interactive" Three Ring Tent Circus; Also Mulling Dumbo for Broadway

Touted the "largest expansion" in Magic Kingdom Theme Park history, Disney breaking ground on four new neighborhoods in Fantasyland. One will invite patrons to participate in a "series of interactive experiences" under an air-conditioned three-ring circus tent. Three rings, how interesting; maybe they never really went away? Looking at this photo of a scale model of the expansion underway, note how it combines circus and carnival. Dumbo (you may know him/her as the flying elephant) will have a starring presence.

Not sure what "interactive" means here, but the idea of a full circle movie dazzling our senses with three rings of action sounds terrific. I was thinking along these lines when I made my suggestions for a new kind of Circus World Museum show. Indeed, techno-cinematography may someday revive a glorious 1920s big top experience. Perhaps I will live to see it from a wall-mounted Hi-Def TV in a nursing home.

Over to you, Broadway: Disney also rumored to be mulling stage musical adaptation of its animation classic Dumbo. Michael Riedel reporting in the New York Post that Mickey Mouse big shots approached Billy Elliot director Stephen Daldry about staging the project; no interest, so the Magic Kingdom search continues. But nobody's promising anything definite at this point. Somehow, Dumbo on stage sounds like a singing bomb to me. Peter Pan on steroids, anybody?

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Circus World Museum Board Member Responds to My Post, "New Visions Needed"

Please Note: My posting about Circus World Museum evidently hurt some feelings in Baraboo. I received a thoughtful e-mail from Jonathan Lipp, a CWM board member, although he made clear that he was not writing me in his capacity as a member of the board but as an individual. I asked him for permission to reprint his message in its entirety, allowing for no editing. He granted permission, so here it follows:

David,

Please take my comments as a fellow who loves circus and is doing all I can to support a place I love. I only wish there were more of us who could show support, My position is to find solutions and support those who care enough to keep an important part of our history alive.

My name is Jonathan Lipp, I serve on the Board of Circus World, but am writing as an individual, not speaking for the board. I love Circus World and have spent a lot of my own volunteer time and cash to support the museum, my wife and I hold an annual fundraiser to support the museum.

That said, in my view, the real problem the museum has, is support. In its heyday the museum had a staff of over 30 full time people. Most of the funding came from private individuals with a love for circus. I am sure that when they were collecting, their intention was to restore and display everything they could, they refused no contributions of artifacts. Many of those supporters are now gone, their children do not have the attachment to the circus and have found other interests and there are less donations.

The museum is owned by the State of Wisconsin Historical Society, but is run by our independent foundation. Donations over the years have dwindled and blaming a succession of current and previous staff is pointless. I work with numerous non-profit foundations and they are all having fund raising problems, Circus World is no exception. The focus on wagons goes back to the founders and is nothing new, it is a Circus Museum and not a carnival museum. Most of the restorations in recent years have been funded by individual contributors who have directed their funds to specific projects. If anyone out there wants to pay for other specific restorations, please do. I am sure that if there is someone who has the means to restore carnival equipment and to properly display it, the museum would be glad to discuss projects like that. Point is, that there is very little money and maintaining current equipment and exhibits is the most that can be done now. Priorities include keeping the Parkinson Library open, which we are doing. Criticizing the current staff is more than cruel, these people work 60 to 80 hour weeks and are doing the best they can with very limited resources.

The accreditation you talk about was discussed a number of years ago, we just did not have the money to do it. The current staff has the most diverse collection of experience to keep the museum operational, cuts are hard to do, but when there is only enough money for a few people, difficult decisions must be made. I would prefer to keep the museum open when people want to visit it. If we had to close it, it would revert to the owners, the State of Wisconsin, which has cut funding to their own Historical Society, so it is questionable if the Society would be able to keep it open at all, since the cost of State employees are higher than the foundations.

One of the great debates in the museum business is whether to display artifacts as found or to use them in an active way that shows them in a more realistic context, like a parade. I understand the debate and both sides have merit. For my preference, I would rather see a museum not as a mausoleum of the past but as a vibrant and active engaging place that is the essence of the word "museum". The essence is "muse" as in inspiring thought and understanding, parades and performances do just that, without those I am sure that the thousands who visit the museum would be hundreds. We don't have the millions that the State of Florida has invested in their museums, I wish we did.

If it were not for Steve Freese's experience in government and fund-raising I know that we may have had to shutter Circus World 2 years ago. The Circus Parade last year not only provided funding for last years operations but paid for maintenance on many wagons to make them parade-able. As to the authenticity of the wagons, yes some have more new wood than old. The condition that many of them were in when rescued was abysmal, many had less than 20% of the original wood left. Photographs and research allowed the workers to restore the wagons to a semblance of what they were at one point in time. As you know, the wagons went though many owners and many different paint jobs, some point in time had to be picked. Back to the point, do we want the "muse" to be what the circus was or what remains, which is more educational? Collectors almost never restore or even clean artifacts, museums (not collections) try to show what was, in context, it is just a choice, neither good or bad. The museum needs volunteers and money, carping accomplishes nothing.

Thanks
Jonathan

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The Morning Midway: The Taschen Photo Book: $19.98 at Barnes & Noble ...

[The above photo from Life magazine would have given this book a much needed dramatic end point: The finale "Hoop Dee Doo" at the last performance of Ringling Bros. and Barnum Bailey Circus under the big top in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on July 16, 1956]

When I read on Steve Copeland's blog that he had picked up a copy of The Circus: 1870-1950 for only $20.00 at a Barnes and Noble in Texas, in Santa Rosa today visiting a friend, out of curiosity I stepped into the B&N outlet there;; they had at least 20 copies on display, price: $19.98. I couldn't believe it. Too good a deal, so I fell for it. However, this turns out to be a junior edition of the monster museum-in-your-lap original.

It has a new title: The Circus: 1870s-1950s.

It has lost a lot of weight since my visiting it at the S.F. Public library last year when it hit the scale at 15.5 pounds. Now, about half that, I'd guess. This truncated edition was put out by Barnes and Noble last August, and no longer totes text in two other languages, French and German. It numbers a manageable 383 pages compared to the original edition's 670, so some photos have also been discarded. So beware. After all, isn't that what you are after? I'm happy to settle for a book that, when I change positions in my chair, won't attack me. If you want the full museum, it's on Amazon, down to $125.00 from its $200.00 list price.

This has got to be about the most ill-defined and disorganized circus book I have ever come across. Why that title? We are given rich illustrations of circus skills in Egypt and China going back thousands of years. We briefly tour the Astley era. The book ends up, visually, with American thrill acts from the turn of the last century. We have been deprived a journey of any consequence, but lured through a jumbled landscape that jerks back and forth in time. Although many if not most of the photographs may be familiar to the seasoned reader, the reproductions are without parallel.

Might they not, however, have arranged them to depict some sort of a narrative arch, say from the garden of Eden until Pittsburgh, which is where they decided to stop? They might have, for example given us a set of images from the last day under the big top at Pittsburgh in 1956. And then images of the first tentless years following -- not so beautiful but spectacular and vividly revealing. What is glaringly absent, given this publisher's brainless fetish for high-level photography, are images from Life magazine, both of the last shows in Pittsburgh as well as of the gorgeously costumed John Ringling North-produced shows of the era. (To sample a couple, scroll down to the bottom of this page and try imagining them reproduced to Taschen standards.) There is a grainy black and white of a vague high wire figure over the rings of at Madison Square Garden at 1955.

And then there is the text itself, so dismissively small in size as to discourage us from a serious attempt to try reading it. About its factual component, anyway, I have grave reservations from having, while cruising some of the essays and captions, stumbled over such obvious blunders as these:

Karl Wallenda died at the age of 61 in 1970.

Lottie Brunn was just as talented and accomplished as her brother Francis.

Takeo Usui was an "acrobat" (in one photo) a "high wire walker" and "dancer" (in another).

And since when would a circus allow a fan to walk right up to an elephant and pet its trunk? A photo so captioned is actually looking straight at, if I'm not wrong, Betty Hutton during the De Mille shoot of his film The Greatest Show on Earth.

Three experts on this project, among them Fred Dahlinger, Jr. who should know better, and they can't even get the fundamentals correct? Three experts and this?

Aside from the abundance of glorious photography and illustrations, especially those validating the brilliance of costume designer Miles White, I remain senselessly overwhelmed, disoriented and unimpressed.

Is that all there is?

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