Saturday, September 19, 2009

There are so many ways to think about a circus. This kind of old-timey one came to town last night, the kind under a tent where everywhere you look there is a pole in the way, and it lets you think to yourself "this is so authentic, a real, grimy, shady circus. It is so cool that I am here."
And then you get close enough to the albino boa constrictor to see how his tail just kind of dangles there, how he is more of a heavily sedated tube of dead weight than an actual snake and you start to think that the PETA protesters at the gate probably had a point.
Every kid there bought one of these blue light sabers and every last one of them was really, really good at reenacting fight scenes from the newer, especially lame Star Wars franchise. I mean really good, honestly.
A woman ponders her $7 Polaroid of herself with a drugged-up boa constrictor hanging on her neck for dear life. $7 sounds like a lot for a Polaroid, but now that the film is not being made anymore, it is kind of a collectors' item in a way.
Oh, circuses. The clowns deserve so much credit because they're the real strong men that the whole things depend on, the way we hope that they are just funny enough to distract us from the tired and abused animals and people and how when, every time they drop a ball, we remember.
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4 comments:

Sarah said...

I work right across Lima from where the circus was yesterday.

Unfortunately I didn't get the chance to go, but I did get to watch the process of them setting up and it was pretty cool. At 8 nothing was there and by 2, the tent was completely up. All of the performers showed up and were milling around.

Hope you had fun!

Mr. Hill said...

I was thinking about what an incredible amount of work it must be to get that thing up there and then tear it down the next day. Circus people must work like 24 hours a day.

It was good times.

Dawn Potter said...

I always think the aging rope-dancing women hold the circus together. There they are, ravaged by time and tanning booths, hanging upside down by their ankles, and they really are beautiful and romantic.

Mr. Hill said...

oh, that's true. they go first, usually, too, so it is like they are giving us the circus blessing before we dig in. last night during the death spiral part one of the ladies spun glitter off of her body, which was a twist I had never seen.