12 February 2000

Yeah, we went to the circus last night! It was great! Matt and I wound up being about fifteen minutes late meeting everyone, but we were plenty early for the show. Our seats were almost the same as they had been last year, but slightly closer to the center ring - pretty good, actually! The pre-show entertainment on the floor was fun to watch, though like last year, we didn't bother to pay the no-doubt exhorbitant fee to get in.

I got a laugh from the vendors, too - most of them were walking slowly up and down the stairs yelling loudly: "Popcorn! Fresh hot popcorn!" "Ice-cold soda!" "Cotton candy!" Then a different one came by. He wasn't yelling. He was talking barely loud enough to be heard, actually: "Ben and Jerry's... Ice cream here..." He knew his product would sell, even without loud hawking.

I confess, I teared up several times after the show started. I love watching acrobats. The way they make it all look so effortless, while I know for a fact that I can barely walk from my front door to my car without stumbling. One team on a trampoline had a kid who couldn't have been more than twelve, and he was turning somersaults in the air and landing on someone's shoulders, then jumping back off. The twelve-year-olds who play on our street slouch over their bicycles and scuff their feet on their way to the bus in the morning.

The act that really got to me were a pair of rope dancers. She hung by her hair fifteen and twenty feet off the ground while the rope swung in lazy circles around the ring, and juggled bright pins, sparkling rings, and flaming torches. Her skill choked me, but what had tears literally streaming down my face was her partner in the center ring. He wore plain white tights and no shirt, and he didn't do anything sparkling and flashy - but he was truly poetry in motion. Tied to the end of his rope were two long leads with loops, and he hung from those loops by his hands or his feet and he twisted himself around the ropes and his own body, flowing from position to position with astonishing fluidity. Simply considering the physical effort made me breathless. At one point it occured to me that this man was dancing like the most graceful of ballet dancers - but doing it holding himself taught twenty or thirty feet off the ground. It was fabulous.

The tigers choked me up, too, from their sheer power and beauty. I tried to take pictures, but they turned out too blurry to keep. The trainer didn't have much to show me that was impressive, but the gorgeous animals held me attention anyway.

I was actually slightly disappointed with some of the second half of the show - it seemed like that was where they had put all the less-well-rehearsed acts. Horses that trotted in circles? They were beautiful animals, but after the impressive riding demonstration the show had opened with, tricks that consisted of trotting around the ring in alternating colors wasn't very impressive. The trapeze artists didn't do anything special, especially given the number of them standing on the platform posing. What they did was pretty - and certainly I couldn't do it! - but only their climax hinted at real skill. I was disappointed at first by the seeming ineptness of the tightrope walkers as well, but their climax convinced me that they'd been shamming. (I should have guessed by the fact that they were working without a net.)

The other thing that detracted from the show for me were a duo of clowns. One of them did some impressive pratfalls and balanced a number of intertesting and ill-balancing items on his chin, but his "partner" - of whom much was made - was merely a very small midget who did nothing more than caper. My guess was that they were trying to capitalize on the popularity of the "Mini-Me" character in the second Austin Powers movie. I was slightly irritated that the circus was giving the title of "clown" to a person who would have been in less politically correct times nothing more than a freak-show attraction. (I'm not insulting midgets, here. There was another, slightly taller, midget in the show who actually participated in the clowning - taking falls and throwing pies - and he deserved the title. But this Mini-Me impersonator was resting on the laurels of his odd looks.)

The real clown of the duo, however, provided the show's final climax - helmetless, he climbed into a giant cannon, and was launched across all three rings! It was quite impressive, I must say - a fitting end to the show. And this year, since we weren't at the very last show, they did their final musical number with all the glitzy, glittery costumes that I'd missed last year.

All in all, despite some minor disappointments, I had a fantastic time. I have a few more pictures, and pretty soon, I'll get them posted in the photo album, so keep your eyes open!