The Circus

[Nuzzolese]

On Saturday I went to the circus. It was a college circus, so all the performers and production crew and all the fundraising and advertising and everything consisted of college students, faculty and staff.

They kind of sucked as a circus but as college students who probably had homework and classes to do, they were pretty good. There were no animals, and very few clowns. One of the clowsn looked like Huggy Bear and he didn't do anything but wave.

Annnyway. Circuses kind of creep me out because even though I loved Barnum and Baily's as a kid, circuses always seemed kind of dirty and sneeky.

Do you think there will come a time when there won't be any circuses anymore? It already seems like an outdated event. Although I love that it probably has a rich tradition of some exotic kind. (I don't always have to know something's tradition in order to fully appreciate the fact that it has a rich tradition.) I mean they're doing some of the same basic stunts they did a hundred years ago! Maybe more! Lion-taming and tight-rope walking and sword-throwning.

Traditionally I think traveling circuses came from Eastern Europe and they were seen as low class gypsies. Carnies. I could be mixing things up though.

The circus or the carnival has always been relatively cheap and then extremely popular when people don't have much money. Why is that?

[Nuzzolese]

I copy/pasted this from wikipedia

The circus is thought to have had its origin in Ancient Rome, where the circus was an open-air stadium where chariot and horse races and other public exhibitions where held. Briton Philip Astley is thought of as the father of the modern circus, establishing permanent and travelling circuses in Britain and Europe in the late 18th century.

[ms.peachy]

I think that the old-style circus with animals and 'freak shows' and that sort of thing will definitely die out, and really, rightly so. But I think there will always be a place for stunt performers and such. Look how successful all of the Cirque du Soleil shows have been, and with good reason - they're fascinating. OK the music's usually kind of cheesy, but all of the performers are outstanding, and the costumes and the whole spectacle of it is fantastic.

Granted, it's not exactly budget family entertainment in the sense that the old traveling circusses were though.

[monkey]

i dont like the circus' history and current use of animals. im not sure it's entirely a good way to treat animals. i only went to the circus once when i was really little with my cousin. i have images in my head from it but i may not have been older than 4.
clowns are scary. i like cirque du soleil though. those people are athletes though.

[Lyman Zerga]

I think that the old-style circus with animals and that sort of thing will definitely die out

thank god

[Nuzzolese]

clowns are scary.

So many people are afraid of clowns. Do you think they'll die out as a performing art, too? At the beginning of the circus I went to, the Ringmaster announced that some people wrote to them ahead of time saying they were afraid of clowns, and could they please not include the clowns in the act, so they made this big show of kicking out the clowns. And the audience was silent. Later a couple of them came out and juggled and then did a silly sloppy trapeze thing. I wonder if that was serious, about the emails requesting no clowns.


This fear of clowns didn't use to be so widespread. Do you think it's a result of movies or our growing awareness of child molesters?

[monkey]

i dont know what makes clowns so creepy. i personally find them weird but i think my view has been shaped by what society has told me about clowns and their inate creepyness. my friend has a clown-phobia though. she will freak out at the sight of one and have a panic attack. my little cousin is also afraid of clowns. i think it's just that theyre so unnatural looking. i dont know. i wish there was a clown study to see what factors influence fear of clowns.

[mickill]

I would have guessed that, if anything, a circus troupe consisting of nothing but college students and faculty would be completely infested by clowns.


This fear of clowns didn't use to be so widespread. Do you think it's a result of movies or our growing awareness of child molesters?
I think it's more to do with the fact that they're the children of Satan. I was terrified of clowns even before I saw It, Gacy or Patch Adams.

[Nuzzolese]

i dont know what makes clowns so creepy. i personally find them weird but i think my view has been shaped by what society has told me about clowns and their inate creepyness. my friend has a clown-phobia though. she will freak out at the sight of one and have a panic attack. my little cousin is also afraid of clowns. i think it's just that theyre so unnatural looking. i dont know. i wish there was a clown study to see what factors influence fear of clowns.

Me too. That would be interesting to know. I've heard a lot of people say that movies like IT and Poltergeist affected them as children. The face might be too scary for little children and then the traumatic effect carries over into adulthood?

Maybe clowns are just an oldfashioned outdated entertainment from a bygone age. No one trusts someone who doesn't look natural. People are like "what are you hiding?!"

But Ronald MacDonald is a clown. Are people afraid of him?

[Nuzzolese]

I would have guessed that, if anything, a circus troupe consisting of nothing but college students and faculty would be completely infested by clowns.


I think it's more to do with the fact that they're the children of Satan. I was terrified of clowns even before I saw It, Gacy or Patch Adams.

If you think about it, most performers are basically clowns, just without the face makeup and colored wigs.

[monkey]

But Ronald MacDonald is a clown. Are people afraid of him?


im afraid of what he's selling. :(

[fucktopgirl]

This fear of clowns didn't use to be so widespread. Do you think it's a result of movies or our growing awareness of child molesters?


well,movie could have play a role in the subconcious mind of people;there is a lot of psycho clown portray everywhere in horror movie and in the "culture"
The worst of all is Mcdonald,,what a freaky one,,scaryyy and they try to brainwash kid that he is cool and the food is represent is good;just som,ebody please shoot him!

BUt i always find clown stupid and not funny and ugly.I never like them and i think they are boring.Well,i saw the cirque du soleil ,couples years ago,and i remember laughing a bit about clown stupid pirouettes but that about it!

SO circus with low budget will kinda suck.LIke i just mentionned,le cirque du soleil was awesome .There have hallucinating light,costume psychedelic music and acrobats from all around the world.They have no animal ,its all about the visual and the choreagraphy of the artists.It is really fluid show where everything seem to click together and your eyes just are fill with wander!

If the Cirque du soleil go through your town,just go see it,,do it!

[Nuzzolese]

I wish I could dress like a circus performer every day. I would wear shiny leotards and sequins and flesh-toned fishnet tights. People would think I was strange, but I would just say "this is how I like to dress" and I would make my own clothes. Life is too short to not dress like a circus performer. That would be something i could put on a plaque above my door, or at my desk. Live the fantasy. I wish I was a drag queen.

[fucktopgirl]

hehehehe,,drag queen are sometime worst and more scary then clown!

[b i o n i c]

i don't remember people talking about how scary crowns were will after steven king's 'it'.

the exaggerated, grotesque painted faces and exaggerated features are what make them scary. they look all deathly pale, their eyes look big and crazy, and their mouths look like they just had a bloody dinner.

i hate it when old things go away. i miss old new york, i miss the grime, i'll miss coney island is gone

[Nuzzolese]

hehehehe,,drag queen are sometime worst and more scary then clown!

They're basically clowns. But I would want to be better than a Drag Queen. I would want to be Carol Channing.

[fucktopgirl]

why carol?

[Nuzzolese]

She's fantastic!! She can sing and dance...well she could. She was utterly distinct. She played bombshells but she wasn't sexy at all. She managed to do everything loud and amusingly while making it look not only easy but totally retarded. She doesn't have that rough edge of brassiness like other singers but she's instantly recognized for being so unique and flashy. She shot herself out of a canon in Thoroughly Modern Millie. That's kind of a circusy - just to tie this back into the topic.

[ms.peachy]

A few years ago a friend from the US was visiting us here in London and we went to a car boot sale (that's a flea market to you all on the other side of the Atlantic) and were just walking around looking at stuff when this friend suddenly said "OH dear GOD" and pointed. So mr.p and I looked of course, and it was a painting of a dumpy looking older man dressed as a clown sitting in an armchair, with a little boy in his underpants sat on his knee. I literally shuddered. Who the fuck paints a painting like that besides John Wayne Gacy? And who the fuck buys it?

We all felt a little sick after that. To this day, if any of us wants to freak the others out, we'l just say "Hey you remember the time we saw that painting-", which usually results in the others clapping their hands over their ears and going "lalalalala, can't hear you, lalalala".