A Ticket to the Circus
The circus is a very American institution and is a part of our cultural way of life. To be fair, the circus predates America and goes back as far as the Roman Empire. If we define the circus too narrowly to be all about clowns, trained animals ranging from elephants to small dogs and even fleas, and acrobats of all kinds, we might be too limited. Most circuses have musicians, trapeze artists, and all sorts of spectacles for the pleasure of live audiences sitting on hard benches at ringside, but even most of those aspects existed back at the chariot races in the Circus Maximus in the center of Ancient Rome. That venue still exists in central Rome on the flats between the Aventine and Palatine hills, wedged in between the Baths of Caracalla, the Roman Forum and the Tiber River. After that, the next time circuses crop up is in the late Eighteenth Century in England. It was there that the first clown really appeared in the form of Joseph Grimaldi, who put on something akin to a harlequin outfit and did funny pantomime things, much to the delight of the children in the audience.
In the U.S. there were circuses as long ago as Revolutionary times, but The Greatest Show on Earth put on by P.T. Barnum took place mostly around the turn of the last century. The Barnum & Bailey Circus (merged with Ringling Brothers) wintered in Florida near Sarasota and spent its summers on the road across America, calling its home Baraboo, Wisconsin. What you may also recall is that the unofficial Circus Hall of Fame lives in Peru, Indiana, but that was less about Barnum & Bailey or Ringling Brothers and more about the less well-known Wallace Circus Company. Once while overnighting in Wabash, Indiana (next door to Peru), I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express, where they give you a free breakfast bar. When I went down, the breakfast room was overrun by Amish children for some reason. A nice Amish woman who was technically in charge of the horde apologized to me about the chaos. I told her I was surprised to see them staying at such a mainstream establishment. She was equally surprised and said that they liked going on vacation too (and it was clear that the kids REALLY liked that). I asked about her vacation and she said she and her clan had gathered to go to the Circus Hall of Fame. It made sense. the circus is old fashioned and Amish are nothing if not kindred spirits with anything old fashioned. It does give one pause about the whole fundamentalist lifestyle…when is old fashioned old fashioned enough to qualify as non-mainstream and not connected to the modern world that fundamentalists like to shun? But the thing you can’t deny is that everyone loves the circus.
The reference to circus carries some baggage despite the fun nature of the event. My friend Frank, who I just wrote a biography for, had his mother describe his life as a circus. I’m sure it was not intended to be hurtful of deeply insulting, but there’s no escaping that it was judgmental as to the fun-loving and raucous way he chose to live his personal life. Don Rickles has a schtick in his comedy act where he would pick out a garishly dressed person in the audience and say something like, “Nice suit….let me make you feel at home…” and then he would hum a circus kaleidoscope music tune, of which there are several which are familiar to almost everyone. It was meant to be a dig to the person, implying they were dressed like a circus act.
For all the joy that circuses bring to young and old, nothing says circus more than clowns do. And yet clowns get a pretty bad rap. If you act like a clown that is certainly not a good thing. Clowns are even now considered scary to some. The horror film genre hasn’t helped their image much. However, I once interviewed a banking candidate that had on his resume that he had attended Clown School. That got my attention and I offered him a job. I never got to see how his schooling affected his performance since someone else found him even more interesting and hired him out from under me. Guess who felt like a clown then?
If someone asked me to go to a circus or go to Disneyland, I would choose the former. I find Disney predictable, but a circus could bring forth almost anything. I think it’s interesting that my Disneyholic daughter Carolyn, while planning her summer visit with us with her kids, has not only asked for the anticipated visit to Disneyland, but has also requested a stop in Las Vegas. She wants to take her girls to a ghost town and Wild West show, but she said she also wants to go to Circus Circus, the Circus Maximus of Las Vegas, with its miles of sideshows and carnival games. It’s a fine line between a circus and a carnival, but it’s like pornography, I know it when I see it.
What has made me think about all this is a strange phenomenon I witnessed in my yard. This is snail season, especially after all the rain we’ve had. I am used to seeing snails on the walks and driveway. They also sometimes climb the walls for some unknown reason. I would think that a snail is instinctively wise enough to know he is climbing away from food rather than towards it. But then I’m sure not all snails are created equal. There must be smart snails and dumb snails, right? So let’s assume the dumb ones climb the walls while the smart one only go places where there’s a well established reason to do so. But some snails surprise you even more.
I have a large stainless steel wind sculpture in the back just off the deck. It’s this lovely 13-14’ affair with a pattern of spoon-like air scoops set in ways to catch the breeze and spin. It creates a lovely shape when it’s turning. The spoons are attached via small 1/8” rods that are meant to function without really being seen too much. The central stem of the sculpture is probably 1-1.5” in diameter. When I sit in my living room I can watch the wind vane turn and it’s very soothing.
Yesterday I noticed something on one of the mid-level spoons. It was a snail, which had attached itself to the metal and was just clinging there as the sculpture spun gently in the breeze. I wondered how the snail had gotten there. I guess I could see a snail dodging the spinning spoon arms to climb the stem, but how did he shimmy out on that thin rod to get to the spoon? That was the only route he could have taken and it must have been a harrowing trip. And to what end? Where exactly did he think he was going? This has caused me to rethink my snail categorization. There must be smart snails and dumb snails, but there must also be adventurous and/or fun-loving snails. I don’t know how long he chose to cling to that spoon or even how he got off (it was getting dark when I saw him and he was long gone by morning). What I know is that he had himself one helluva ride while it lasted. Maybe this was a snail circus? If it was, he would have sold lots of snail tickets. I’m sure P.T. Barnum would have signed him up for a center ring attraction if he had seen him.