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.