Monday, October 20
The Circus: the fantastic and the freaks
Traditionally, the circus was a showcase of human oddities, in figure, form, farce, and talent. Although today we have fly systems and fog machines, safety nets and trampolines, microphones and air conditioning, the basic components and the stereotypical characters are still in place.
Cirque du Soliel's Alegria opens with a monologue by a boy I will refer to as "the circus Darling." In his pre-pubescent timbre, and his clear (though tinged with French) Korean, he endeared us to him and to his cast of fantastical characters. The aerialist, the singer, and the acrobats were punctuated with the clowns who muttered in French and crumpled each others' paper airplanes. When the fat one in overalls four sizes too big got particularly angry at the bald one with his bangs standing straight up off his forehead, the bald one pulled out a quick Korean platitude, "saranghae," I love you. There were fire twirlers in loincloths and a strong man who could hold his whole body parallel to the floor on one arm, a girl who could hula four hoops upside down, and two girls who could bend themselves just about inside-out. There were the trapeze artists, and acrobats on trampolines, and a man with lats the size of watermelons who hung from what might have been the world's largest rubber band. There was a clown in a snowstorm, and then there was the most terrifying moment of the show:
Two very large men supported either end of a flexible plank with their shoulders. Atop the plank, a marginally smaller man did backflips, successively higher and more impressive, until, to the horror of the audience, they lifted the Darling atop the plank, too. The boy wrapped his legs around the man's middle. Not a breath ruffled the silence in the tent. The man held the Darling's bottom with one hand and gathered balance with the other. He prepped, a couple of bends of the knees. The plank flexed. The man leapt into the air with the boy hugged to him. He flipped leg over leg over head. One foot back on the white plank--the next--and he not even wobbled but swayed--the holders of the plank stepped over, pushing more of the white stability into the air underneath them. Finally steady, the boy stepped down. The audience had to let out its breath before it could clap. I wondered, then, if the boy was the man's son. And, if not, how they ever got his mother to consent.
With the final bow, our fantastical creatures removed their wigs, revealing naught but ordinary hair in ordinary browns and blacks, caught up with ordinary pins. I almost wished they hadn't rent the illusion and left me wondering at the tedium of mastering such skills as simultaneous hula hooping, or the daunting memorization of a monologue in a new language for every foreign city. But, I understand that a performer needs a moment of humanity, of recognition within his own personhood for his accomplishment, or oddity.
I also wondered if they traveled with their own cerologist, as none of them had any body hair. Of course, the men passing torches under their bottoms and across their bellies probably singe it off themselves...
Cirque du Soliel's Alegria opens with a monologue by a boy I will refer to as "the circus Darling." In his pre-pubescent timbre, and his clear (though tinged with French) Korean, he endeared us to him and to his cast of fantastical characters. The aerialist, the singer, and the acrobats were punctuated with the clowns who muttered in French and crumpled each others' paper airplanes. When the fat one in overalls four sizes too big got particularly angry at the bald one with his bangs standing straight up off his forehead, the bald one pulled out a quick Korean platitude, "saranghae," I love you. There were fire twirlers in loincloths and a strong man who could hold his whole body parallel to the floor on one arm, a girl who could hula four hoops upside down, and two girls who could bend themselves just about inside-out. There were the trapeze artists, and acrobats on trampolines, and a man with lats the size of watermelons who hung from what might have been the world's largest rubber band. There was a clown in a snowstorm, and then there was the most terrifying moment of the show:
Two very large men supported either end of a flexible plank with their shoulders. Atop the plank, a marginally smaller man did backflips, successively higher and more impressive, until, to the horror of the audience, they lifted the Darling atop the plank, too. The boy wrapped his legs around the man's middle. Not a breath ruffled the silence in the tent. The man held the Darling's bottom with one hand and gathered balance with the other. He prepped, a couple of bends of the knees. The plank flexed. The man leapt into the air with the boy hugged to him. He flipped leg over leg over head. One foot back on the white plank--the next--and he not even wobbled but swayed--the holders of the plank stepped over, pushing more of the white stability into the air underneath them. Finally steady, the boy stepped down. The audience had to let out its breath before it could clap. I wondered, then, if the boy was the man's son. And, if not, how they ever got his mother to consent.
With the final bow, our fantastical creatures removed their wigs, revealing naught but ordinary hair in ordinary browns and blacks, caught up with ordinary pins. I almost wished they hadn't rent the illusion and left me wondering at the tedium of mastering such skills as simultaneous hula hooping, or the daunting memorization of a monologue in a new language for every foreign city. But, I understand that a performer needs a moment of humanity, of recognition within his own personhood for his accomplishment, or oddity.
I also wondered if they traveled with their own cerologist, as none of them had any body hair. Of course, the men passing torches under their bottoms and across their bellies probably singe it off themselves...
Saturday, October 18
Sunday, October 12
English Teacher by day, Mystery Woman by night
"Uh-pa! Uh-pa!" a little girl cried to her father as I passed her in the park. "Jordan Teacher!" she told him, but he was too far to hear, so she called again, excited to see a teacher in such a strange setting. I smiled to myself as I walked up the hill toward my apartment.
I remember seeing my English teacher in line for popcorn at the AMC 24 once. Of course, I was in high school and did my best to make sure he wouldn't see me. But I think it is funny how, as kids, there is such a dissociation between teachers as teachers and teachers as people. It's almost as if they don't exist once they leave the building. The whole tree-falling-in-a-forest thing.
A couple of years ago, I met a young middle school math teacher. He was an attractive, dark-haired snow boarder with a large diamond earring in one ear. I felt bad for the girls in his classes, really, because the odds of them actually focusing on pre-algebra seemed pretty slim to me. I also felt privileged, in a middle-school sort of way, to know what he did on the weekends, to watch him drink and laugh with his adult friends. Never mind the fact that we spanned the ages of nineteen to twenty-four, hardly more than kids ourselves.
Now a teacher myself, I relish the perception of mystery I wear like a shimmery cloak. To my littlest students, I must be very old, and to my oldest, of an enviable age. Each of them seems fascinated by the prospect of my 'impending' marriage. I suppose it would hardly even be conceivable to their compartmentalized experiences that I go home and eat cereal, that I see movies with my friends, and that I wear strappy gold heels and hang off the shoulders of various men throughout the week. Scandalous, eh? The double life of the English teacher.
I remember seeing my English teacher in line for popcorn at the AMC 24 once. Of course, I was in high school and did my best to make sure he wouldn't see me. But I think it is funny how, as kids, there is such a dissociation between teachers as teachers and teachers as people. It's almost as if they don't exist once they leave the building. The whole tree-falling-in-a-forest thing.
A couple of years ago, I met a young middle school math teacher. He was an attractive, dark-haired snow boarder with a large diamond earring in one ear. I felt bad for the girls in his classes, really, because the odds of them actually focusing on pre-algebra seemed pretty slim to me. I also felt privileged, in a middle-school sort of way, to know what he did on the weekends, to watch him drink and laugh with his adult friends. Never mind the fact that we spanned the ages of nineteen to twenty-four, hardly more than kids ourselves.
Now a teacher myself, I relish the perception of mystery I wear like a shimmery cloak. To my littlest students, I must be very old, and to my oldest, of an enviable age. Each of them seems fascinated by the prospect of my 'impending' marriage. I suppose it would hardly even be conceivable to their compartmentalized experiences that I go home and eat cereal, that I see movies with my friends, and that I wear strappy gold heels and hang off the shoulders of various men throughout the week. Scandalous, eh? The double life of the English teacher.
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