ballyhoo, deception, sleight of hand, exotica, spectacle and illusion

A museum of oddities was opened in 1841 by American showman Phineas Taylor Barnum. Immediately after opening, Barnum found himself with the logistical problem of a human logjam. Customers were so jazzed about what they saw inside that they didn’t want to leave. In an effort to solve the problem, Barnum pulled a fast one on the visitors and posted a sign that read “This Way to the Egress” which actually meant exit. Hot to see another peculiar mutant, people eagerly followed the mysterious sign only to find themselves outside show. Barnum is said to have coined the phrase "There's a sucker born every minute."
Curiosity is a force to be reckoned with. It drives us to push our limits of comfort, to explore, to understand, hopefully to learn. The circus is just one giant that has exploited the inquisitiveness of the public, but it sure created an amazing array of characters and a more than eccentric subculture, full of real people.


The Marvelous Mabel Stark.
A trained nurse, Mabel grew tired of ordinary life and decided to join the circus and became the world's premier tiger trainer in the 20s. She's credited as the world's first woman tiger trainer/tamer. "The chute door opens as I crack my whip and shout, 'Let them come,' Out slink the striped cats, snarling and roaring, leaping at each other or at me. It's a matchless thrill, and life without it is not worth while to me." - Stark quote from her autobiography, Hold That Tiger.


Circus performer "Tiny Kline" came to America at 14 as part of a dance troupe. She lived in a boarding house in New York City for Jewish immigrant workers where young women were taught how to "behave", or prepped for becoming productive American citizens as domestic servants or needle workers. Tiny dejected the passive attempt at life and opted for that of a burlesque dancer, starring off Broadway in cheap productions. After only five weeks of marriage to a renowned Wild West trick rider, her husband fell off of his horse and died and Tiny's career in the circus began. She worked her way up to be a Roman rider and would stand atop a charging horse in the chariot races at the end of the show. In 1932 she crossed Times Square hanging by her teeth which was known as her signature aerial iron jaw act. At age 70, Tiny became the very first Tinkerbell at Disneyland.


Unknown Circus Lady named Gloom.
I'd like to know her story.


Interestingly, at the turn of the century almost all snake charmers were women.


Savage? Maybe if on the technical level, but the whole thing is an experience, it's tangible (as opposed to the ever increasing culture-less reality tv shows that seem to be an exercise in product placement). With so many nursing their curiosity daily and at home for free, will we ever see the circus again?

Tail Chaser

Feeling fast, tired, full, empty, antsy, ready. Sensitive to it all but nothing at the same time. You're living and loving but lying as well. I'm sleeping too much but my dreams leave me exhausted from a night of unyielding journeys and travels, quests and tests and meaningless puzzles that somehow correlate to the self-styled important aspects of my waking life. Everything is so altogether brilliant yet so demanding all at once.

Have you found a way to balance this? It is neither bad nor good, not sad nor happy, just is and we feel it all over our skin and throughout our bodies. And we feel it over and over again to keep our restless minds from forgetting for too long just what’s going on here. I start to feel like a dog chasing its tail in that fanatical, ecstatic infatuation with the obvious.

You think one thought, that leads to the next, that implodes and regenerates and mushrooms out through your head so you can't feel what you were thinking about anymore but you can see it. The manifestation of your own creation whirls you around so fast you don’t even have a chance to realize that you’ve already wound up right back to the exact spot you were in before. You just chase your tail. That thought comes running faster and faster because it’s right in front of your face and you can smell the magnetic essence of it when it’s at the tip of your teeth. But when you just about have it, when it’s so close you can feel the vibrations tickling the end of your nose and your tongue waters because you’re boarding on capturing that ceaseless fixation… you catch a hair of what you’ve been after, and the taste is not so much to your liking.

You realize, break down the information, but by this time the thought has already divided and multiplied into a different variation of what it was before, and another spell is cast. You feel the twitch in your left eye and the swelling sensation of energy that surges up through the back of your neck and into your mind. And you can't resist the manic need to hunt down and capture your own misapprehended invention. Except, it wasn't a misapprehension at the time...

Fiction's Diction: Short Story of a Lost Dream

Oh I remember inside these walls, the first day I came to this house…how pretty the old french windows opened up to the rooftops...my favorite, and then the moon, howling low up above, shining bright mellow down on me. Felt like I was back in Paris, back in that crazy foreign territory where you’re just becoming friends and you’re not quite sure if what you said was too much or how far your next step should be. Its a very political dance but romantic nonetheless because you know just where it will lead, into that bedroom, in between your sheets, up against your soft skin but that thought is what drives you, what makes you mad for life, that slow knowing, that back and forth dance, that hopscotch child’s game…not knowing the future but knowing the past patterns, how will they surprise you? How will they change? Will they at all?

Oh those windows were so exciting with their cheap little air mattress floating beneath, starry skies promising nothing but giving it all at the same time...who else could be there but you. I spent my solitude in innocent crimes, tired and weary from a days work and lost in confusion of the unknown but still in love with its unpredictability. Sitting on that deflated piece of shit happy as a hound dog in a butcher shop, sweating from the night’s hot breeze through the unair-conditioned empty house. Sleep naked, sleep hard, and dream well. I had taken the leap and wound up somewhere else…it crept up on me sometimes but I am a chameleon and I make the best and I learn and transform. Which is good right? Right? I thought so.

Wake up with a light so bright you can hear it screaming at you like the playful child you once were “WAKE UP, WAKE UP, it’s a brand new day, time to run out and play!” You had to listen, because we all still want to play, play, play… but we had to work, and work and then play. Oh what sadness you did not see! You did see but you didn’t want to, so you played, like a child. My happy heart soon began to sink because I missed you, your laugh, your touch, your smile, your breath, it all meant nothing in the end without you here to share, to roll around in the grass and cry up at the heavens about how alive you are, how you’re seeing it, you’re feeling it.. and me too.

What surprise the devil buried beneath our feet, what silly frivolous demise he planted just to break the ground between us. Did we know it was there? More like we thought we could stamp it out like a wild fire and save the lush forest. But you came anyway and we were happy, we were lost in the sky, but discovering and learning and loving together, you were my baby and I was yours and we took care of each other the best we knew how…it was enough for me.

And that window stayed the same but the view was different. I tried to show you the moon but it was never there, I succeeded in showing you the stars once and the red sky shooting up around the palm. You didn’t really care. Then our happy home began to come to its halt, the dreams showed up, moved in and you changed. I saw your face, I saw your eyes, they left me and drifted softly away. Oh wanted you so badly…"Please come back to me!" my heart would cry through the flesh. Those empty eyes filled with fire when you saw her here, a thousand nightmares awoke me but I stayed asleep still.

Was your heart ever with me? Were you ever here? Do you want me? Please ease my heart. The sadness comes in waves upon me, a dagger splits my head in two, and my chest is filled with all the rocks you threw. Oh my happy dream, my happy dream did not come true but it’s ugly sister showed up at my door and I let her in thinking I could help. How naïve, how juvenile to think I had something that was never there to begin with. How low am I now, how deep can this cut down? Lift me up window, to that moon, that sweet sky lifting up above these rooftops. Lend me your strength and your survival…I am a woman, I am alive, I will call upon you, I know you hear my soft cries. But how did it come to this? This deep blue abyss filled with love and longing and confusion and torment…how did I get lost in the sea. Oh I never though you meant me harm, just never thought for once I’d be hanging on like this, a loser for your love, caught in someone else’s tryst. Please let it not be true. I would love you til my days end and then love you some more but I am weak you see and I leave things behind.

There nothing left for you my heart says, this love you have to give does not want you, leave or be left to die in your own longing arms. Try desperately to forget the pain they caused. Why this torment? Why this pain? I accept and love the ruptures in life, but this sacred, this love, should not be meddled with...it is the only thing I know to be true..do not deface it with these things. Please love don’t go. The window’s open, the hearts on fire, the chest is filled with daggers and blood is on your floor.

A Po EM

Truth.
Do you really wanna know the truth little girl? Do you really wanna see what’s behind all those eyes?
Do ya little girl?
Pink silken skirts twirl into rags when you see all those lies
The twinkle in your eye will fade
Your dimple will kill
Off the monsters

And do ya little boy, wanna see her go
Do you wanna see her tears, falling softly like snow?
Cause you never knew
The pain she’d bare for you
No boy, you never knew
All those thoughts she’d think about you

So please little girl
Turn your sweet eyes to the sky
And remember all the reasons why
You here and not, letting go of it all
Yes, little girl
You need to know
Just why it’s better bein alone.

Let the seasons begin

Today, I quit my job. I can begin to explain the exuberance that jolts through my veins when I really process those four words. I. QUIT. MY. JOB.

The poison that crept up my spine each day that filled me with anxiety and fear and made my face cringe up so tight that it was very difficult to smile, is now over. The benefits that I did not get are nevermore. The public embarrassment passive-aggressive torment is through. AND NOW...my life is anew! My heart can barley contain itself!

Here's how it went down.

I had a beautiful night last night in Echo Park with my boyfriend and two dogs and one cat and a bunch of cacti. We ate the best pasta in all of Los Angeles, went on a safari in the backyard, hung out on the floor with the two shaved sheep dogs, sat in an old 69' Dart and drank wine, watched Burn After Reading, and then slept like logs. When the alarm went off this morning at 7:30, I didn't get up.

I kept sleeping and was in the middle of I'm sure a very odd and enthralling dream of which I cannot recollect right now. At 8:37 I decided to pull myself together and prepare to go into the trenches of my workplace. Whenever I think about this process, I feel like a used ashtray. I took a shower, and it was so nice and so clam, the morning light was glowing through the fogged window in the bathroom and I did not want to leave. That was when the reality hit me, that I didn't quite accept yet, I didn't have to leave. I didn't have to keep poisoning myself. I was fully capable of not choosing to do that.

Still, I kept along with my morning routine which has dwindled down from actually making myself up and dressing like I give a damn to throwing on whatever I seem to have in my car from the past few days and covering my dark undereye circles with sunglasses hoping to still pass as a young woman, happy and hopeful.

Skip to 30 minutes later. I am driving on Alvarado Street headed towards the 10. The sun is beautiful and the heavy clouds are reflecting iridescent rays of light that burst out in every direction. I get so distracted I almost swerve into the car beside me, who then speeds up and cuts me off but I'm not mad. Typically, I'm pretty hyper-sensitive to how other people feel so I often find myself trying to either bring people up from sadness or down from anger. This is a pointless task for the most part.

Bob Dylan's Highway 69 album is playing and I feel fantastic! Minus the impending sense of doom that flashes through my mind at each red light, realizing I am that much closer to work. Realizing that I am ultimately going to go in and waste this glorious day away in a damp basement that has all the right asethetics and charm but none of the honest good feelings that I have outside in this day. Will I be there until 8 tonight? 9? 10? I push the putrid thoughts out of my mind and concentrate on Maggie's Farm. Through my coffee-colored lenses, everything looks so wonderfully vibrant.

On the highway, the work poison creeps back up through the nape of my neck and filters down through my arms. I light a cigarette and switch on Graveyard Woman. I think of the ocean and how at this very moment, there are waving crashing up towards the shore. Bubbling white foam is chasing little birds back from the sand where they scurry back and forth to nab up little bites of seafood. My heart is there and I realize that I can physically go there if I want. I do not have to go to work in this place where my heart dies and I'm constantly running back and forth for someone else who isn't the ocean. The idea is almost too much and I keep driving towards doom.

By the time I exit the highway, my mind is already made up. For posterity, I half-heartedly try to convince myself that I should be the bigger person. I should just forget these thoughts and go in and work and kiss some more ass and cause no one any trouble. It is too late though, the ties to this job were cut back at that red light on Alvarado. I am done. Now I am a block away from work, I can either go in and be an empty shell of a person and grow increassingly angry on the inside and be a decent person, or I can go see the ocean.



You can picture the rest.

Being a Rug

To be a rug.

I laid on the floor last night after dissolving a spoonful of banana-split ice cream in my mouth, and after the taste left my tongue, I began to wonder what it would be like to be a rug. A rug does many things that for the most part go virtually unnoticed. Of course it is a dead thing, an inanimate object. But if it was alive, how would it go about it's daily routine? How would it take everything in?

Here's what I did to find out:

Lie down on the floor on your back, preferably on a hardwood floor so as to feel the ground beneath you and the barrier you provide the feet that will walk upon you. Feel what being a comfort and softness for feet is.

Now, close your eyes and listen to the room you are in. Is it a kitchen? With a tea kettle beginning to boil, a water faucet turned on rinsing dirty dishes, footsteps pattering this way and that, clinging of pans, the blunted slam of wooden cabinets and spices being opened, sprinkled, and then set aside...someone humming their favorite song?

Breath as softly and as quietly as you can. Remember...you cannot see your body, you have no limbs, you are a rug, one stretch of fabric laid on the ground. Stay still and listen to everything outside of yourself. Pay no mind to the noises you make.

Now, open your eyes, slowly, quietly, and look about your room. Blend in. Do you see people talking? Chattering? How do they look? What do their faces say? Are they burrowing their feet in your warmth while they dance along conversation? A rug could get lonely if there's no one walking around, it has too much time to think about itself, about how it could have been a flying carpet...

Look up at their eyes and tell me what they say. Are these people close? Or are they far apart? Can you see the nervousness or excitement in their eyes when they begin to laugh after an awkward sentence? You can really see the truth underneath the feet and eyes of the players, like a child.

Do not move, do not speak, watch them. Watch the room. Be still.

Can you stay long enough? For you cannot move, your head cannot turn, you only have eyes and ears but you can feel the weight pressed upon you. You live only through your observations. And though if you're lucky enough to have an owner that cleans you so you look nice, picks up the crumbs they spill on you so the roaches don't scamper over you at night, and straightens you out every time someone accidentally skews you out of your normal straight line so you feel equalized; that's all a rug could hope for. But you would have quite a bit of knowledge stored in your threats. Wear and tear, sweat and wine, and probably a lot of other things that humans disperse on their trappings.

A rug truly does have the most unobtrusive patience of anything I have ever thought about, besides perhaps a blanket that waits for you wherever you may toss it and stays there until you are cold again and need it’s warmth.

Ultimately from this experiment I realized again,
DIFFERENT VIEWPOINT = DIFFERENT THOUGHTS.