For something a little bit different I went to the local circus last night.

It was kind of weird- very home grown effort, i guess i am used to seeing things like Circ du Soleil (or however it is spelt) , and compared to those productions this one was kind of budget and low rent. Even the Uber dome concerts like Pink have circus elements but seeing these performers under the big tent was a bit of an unexpected thrill.

It made me appreciate grass roots efforts - people who do something for the love of it, who have profoundly strange talents, and they aren't ashamed about using them. I can imagine a movie along the lines of Strictly Ballroom, delving into the behind-the-scenes politics. It would be brilliant, but I think the genre has been done to death.

I never realised how many sexual undertones go along with the circus. There were chicks in incredibly revealing g-strings and outfits, homo-erotic guys, HOT guy, the magician playing the "dirty old man" role....

It made me realise that the circus is burlesque for kids, and thats not a bad thing. Its an alternate reality - from the old weathered carnie women to the waifish magicians assistants - this stuff is fairytales brought to life.

I think the circus would provide kids with many fantasies and give them their first glimpse at sexuality.

Given that the travelling circus is getting rarer and rarer and we are turning more to TV and Britney Spears's Vagina for our thrills - I'm not sure whether this hyper-online-interactive-in-your-face future will do society any good.

The subtlety of the circus, thats a concept that modern media will never grasp, and i think its to our societies detriment.

That sounds awesome Daev. A few years back I took my dad to the circus because he used to always want to go as a kid but never did - and we had so much fun. The only thing we didn't quite get into was any animal part - just leave them out of it.

And another drumroll please , not only have we had the 10,000th post of Same Same today, but this thread is the 1000th thread! It's a big day of milestones around here.

So we'll be sending a super hot Same Same t-shirt your way Daev, noice!

thanks man!

“I want you to know that no one had less to do with this post than Jesus. So, all I can say is, ‘suck it, Jesus.’ This t-shirt is my God now.”

this circus did not have animals - it just had performers and carnies!

Suck it Jesus!

Too funny.

I like your way of thinking daev. I think there's also def. something to be said for the act of a live and physically present performance.

TV's never really done it for me, Cinema perhaps a bit more with its unpredictable element of a shared experience amongst strangers, But all forms of theatre and performing art just blow me away. In a sense they are unrepeatable and unique experiences. The exact same thing will never be experienced again by another audience, and your own individual view of it is not wholistically dictated by the cinematographer. As much as I adore a great cinematographer... no matter how skilled they are, it just fades into nothing once we learn to apply our own cinematographic visions of the world.

Live performance forces us to grow our own sense of how we want to grapple with the wide scenery presented to us. It makes us take control of how we want to view the performance. And I guess in some larger sense, it makes us take responsibility for how we choose to view the world...

what do you think?

i totally agree with you - live performances are not so stage managed (well, i mean they are... but) its not like they get to cut, re do, blah blah etc etc etc

what you see is essentially what you get and that is more real than Television.


Disclaimer: i love my foxtel