Well, that was …. uninspiring. Surprisingly so. We went to see
Ringling Bro.s & Barnun & Bailey Greatest Show On Earth at the
Boston Garden (I don't care who paid for it is remains the Garden, only
slightly removed from the manky glory I remember from my youth) and,
wow. Not much there there.

Aerin said it best, when she
pointed out that they clearly have pots of money and spend it freely,
but make inadequate use of the extensive talents of the people they
have hired. Every act stopped before it got interesting. No individual
was allowed complexity, ambiguity, uncertainty. The simple fact that
there was always one more thing to look at than I had attention to
apply meant that I felt I might be missing something, yet once I turned
my eyes to a new point, there was still nothing much going on. The
aerial stuff could be accomplished by anyone at Circus Smirkus (plus
they didn't let the girls do anything interesting on trapeze –
something I pay attention to.) There were too many clowns and no one
got any personality except Bello and I was pretty darn sick of him by
the end. Plus it was painfully loud. Really, really, really loud.

Having complained at length, there were some things I
liked a lot. I liked that there were a lot of animals. I liked the
horses (although the above applies here as well – they had some ponies
in the opening parade we never saw again, and two Freisians who were
gorgeous and should have had a bigger part in something, anything….)
There were liberty zebras who did a little act. They were not as
comfortable as the horses, but seemed in good spirits (the last one was
bucking at the whip, which made me laugh each time). I loved that the
dogs looked like they were in some kind of dog heaven – their tails
were going, their eyes were bright, they were having a great time. For
all that there were protesters outside complaining about the elephants,
they didn't look unhappy. They looked like it was work, but not bad
work, simply something that was not recess. I felt worse for the big
cats – mostly tigers I think – who seemed really out of place. I think,
in retrospect, they were encouraged to look fierce, but they looked mad
and miserable to me. Not abused. Not starved. Just in the wrong place.

We
were told to see the circus by our teachers, to see where we fit in the
circus continuum (to be fair, it was aimed at the pro track kids, and
Aerin's class of advanced teens, not the fat and lumpy middle-aged  performer wanna-be that I am). I can see now why Cirque was so
astonishing when it appeared for the first time almost 20 years ago –
it is a really different aesthetic.

It is only a little sobering to realize that I am a circus snob.

Alice and I were going from one place to another in Brattleboro when we were captivated by something visually and aromatically spicy. The shop on Flat Street selling things from India sucked us right in. We wandered for a moment, caught by different things. Alice fingered all the tiny interesting objects – there were puppets combining men and women into one two headed flip/flop creature though only one was visible at a time, and boxes of tiny skinny bangles, some too small to fit over Alice's hands. I found an astounding array of textiles, embroidered, dyed, appliqued and stitched together. And we wound up together looking at a shelf of tiny gods. Alice wanted to know who they represented, and I had no clue. The only individual I knew, even glancingly, is Ganesh. Others I have only heard of, and could not match names with the images in front of me.

Alice picked up one in particular and was ready to bring her home when I stopped her. I found myself saying "We can't invite her into the house if we don't know what she stands for." Which has made me think of all the things that do come into the house, when I don't know what they stand for. Food, clothing, random stuff migrates into the house, invited in on the spur of the moment yet without a clear statement of intent.

Aside from a new metric to think about, I have to do some research on the panoply of Indian deities and see who caught Alice's eye.

I am typing this on the most astoundingly  pink gummy keyboard I have ever witnessed. It is a test to see if the keyboard will work for typing on a tiny machine when in Brattleboro. I have to do a picture transfer test too, which will allow me to show you exactly how gummy and pink this keyboard really is. Also how tiny the tiny mchine is. If I can make typing more comfortable then I can write letters, post to this blog, cope with pictures, etc. from someplace other than the home base.

I never thought of myself as yearning after a laptop much. I use to joke that a laptop machine meant to me a sewing machine I could use on my lap while in the passenger seat of a car. But maybe there is use to this after all.