Nietzsche's Tightrope Walker.

In Friedrich Nietzcshe's monumental tome Thus Spoke Zarathustra - a book for All and None, there is a story about a tightrope walker - this is it... Think of it what you will.

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When Zarathustra came into the next town, which lies on the edge of the forest, he found many people gathered together in the market place; for it had been promised that there would be a tightrope walker. And Zarathustra spoke thus to the people:
"I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?
"All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. And man shal1 be just that for the overman: a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. You have made your way from worm to man, and much in you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even now, too, man is more ape than any ape.

…

When Zarathustra had spoken thus, one of the people cried: "Now we have heard enough about the tightrope walker; now let us see him too!" And all the people laughed at Zarathustra. But the tightrope walker, believing that the word concerned him, began his performance.

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Zarathustra, however, beheld the people and was amazed. Then he spoke thus:
"Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman—a rope over an abyss. A dangerous across, a dangerous on-the-way, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous shuddering and stopping.
"What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end: what can be loved in man is that he is an overture and a going under.
"I love those who do not know how to live, except by going under, for they are those who cross over.

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Then something happened that made every mouth dumb and every eye rigid. For meanwhile the tightrope walker had begun his performance: he had stepped out of a small door and was walking over the rope, stretched between two towers and suspended over the market place and the people. When he had reached the exact middle of his course the small door opened once more and a fellow in motley clothes, looking like a jester, jumped out and followed the first one with quick steps.
"Forward, lamefoot!" he shouted in an awe-inspiring voice. "Forward, lazybones, smuggler, pale-face, or I shall tickle you with my heel! What are you doing here between towers? The tower is where you belong. You ought to be locked up; you block the way for one better than yourself." And with every word he came closer and closer; but when he was but one step behind, the dreadful thing happened which made every mouth dumb and every eye rigid: he uttered a devilish cry and jumped over the man who stood in his way.

Kubrik made this famous with 2001

This man, however, seeing his rival win, lost his head and the rope, tossed away his pole, and plunged into the depth even faster, a whirlpool of arms and legs. The market place became as the sea when a tempest pierces it: the people rushed apart and over one another, especially at the place where the body must hit the ground.
Zarathustra, however, did not move; and it was right next to him that the body fell, badly maimed and disfigured, but not yet dead. After a while the shattered man recovered consciousness and saw Zarathustra kneeling beside him. "What are you doing here?" he asked at last. 'I have long known that the devil would trip me. Now he will drag me to hell. Would you prevent him?"
"By my honor, friend," answered Zarathustra, "all that of which you speak does not exist: there is no devil and no hell. Your soul will be dead even before your body: fear nothing further."
The man looked up suspiciously. "If you speak the truth," he said, "I lose nothing when I lose my life. I am not much more than a beast that has been taught to dance by blows and a few meager morsels."
"By no means," said Zarathustra. "You have made danger your vocation; there is nothing contemptible in that. Now you perish of your vocation: for that I will bury you with my own hands."
When Zarathustra had said this, the dying man answered no more; but he moved his hand as if he sought Zarathustra's hand in thanks.

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Meanwhile the evening came, and the market place hid in darkness. Then the people scattered, for even curiosity and terror grow weary. But Zarathustra sat on the ground near the dead man, and he was lost in thought, forgetting the time. At last night came, and a cold wind blew over the lonely one.
Then Zarathustra rose and said to his heart: "Verily, it is a beautiful catch of fish that Zarathustra has brought in today! Not a man has he caught but a corpse. Human existence is uncanny and still without meaning: a jester can become man's fatality. I will teach men the meaning of their existencc—the overman, the lightning out of the dark cloud of man. But I am still far from them, and my sense does not speak to their senses. To men I am still the mean between a fool and a corpse.
"Dark is the night, dark are Zarathustra's ways. Come, cold, stiff companion! I shall carry you where I may bury you with my own hands." 

Kafka goes to the Circus

"First Sorrow" (German: "Erstes Leid") is a short story by Franz Kafka probably written between the fall of 1921 and the spring of 1922. It appeared in an art periodical called Genius, III no. 2 (dated 1921, actually published in 1922)[1] and in the Christmas 1923 supplement to the "Prager Presse". The story was also included in the collection A Hunger Artist (Ein Hungerkünstler) published soon after Kafka's death.

 In this story Kafka sets his peculiar existentialistic mind into that of a trapeze artist. As with many of his stories they are at the same time very straight forward and familiar whilst simultaneously hinting at deeper uncanny meanings. This is just the kind of material we enjoy here at the Illuminated Showman. What the story means seem to be as obtuse for scholars as for the general reader. The panoply of interpretations out there seems to reveal nothing less than that the story means what you take it to mean, even if that is nothing at all.
I find it fascinating as a kind of experimental myth and as someone who take a great interest in the mythopoetics of Circus and Carnival arts I really appreciate its dualism of familiar and fantastic. 

"In fact, the theme seems so large for such a short story, i.e. the notion that expanding on one's world (however cramped it is) by any measure is a rubicon of unease."

from Yolacrary

The illustrations were made by Argentinian artist Christian Montenegro for a South American edition the story.

First Sorrow

by Franz Kafka, translated by Willa and Edwin Muir

A TRAPEZE ARTIST—this art, practiced high in the vaulted domes of the great variety theaters, is admittedly one of the most difficult humanity can achieve—had so arranged his life that, as long as he kept working in the same building, he never came down from his trapeze by night or day; at first only from a desire to perfect his skill, but later because custom was too strong for him. All his needs, very modest needs at that, were supplied by relays of attendants who watched from below and sent up and hauled down again in specially constructed containers whatever he required. This way of living caused no particular inconvenience to the theatrical people, except that, when other turns were on the stage, his being still up aloft, which could not be dissembled, proved somewhat distracting, as also the fact that, although at such times he mostly kept very still, he drew a stray glance here and there from the public. Yet the management overlooked this, because he was an extraordinary and unique artist. And of course they recognized that this mode of life was no mere prank, and that only in this way could he really keep himself in constant practice and his art at the pitch of its perfection.
       Besides, it was quite healthful up there, and when in the warmer seasons of the year the side windows all around the dome of the theater were thrown open and sun and fresh air came pouring irresistibly into the dusky vault, it was even beautiful. True, his social life was somewhat limited; only sometimes a fellow acrobat swarmed up the ladder to him, and then they both sat on the trapeze, leaning left and right against the supporting ropes and chatted, or builders’ workmen repairing the roof exchanged a few words with him through an open window, or the fireman, inspecting the emergency lighting in the top gallery, called over to him something that sounded respectful but could hardly be made out. Otherwise nothing disturbed his seclusion; occasionally, perhaps, some theater hand straying through the empty theater of an afternoon gazed thoughtfully up into the great height of the roof, almost beyond eyeshot, where the trapeze artist, unaware that he was being observed, practiced his art or rested.
       The trapeze artist could have gone on living peacefully like that, had it not been for the inevitable journeys from place to place, which he found extremely trying. Of course his manager saw to it that his sufferings were not prolonged one moment more than necessary; for town travel, racing automobiles were used, which whirled him, by night if possible or in the earliest hours of the morning, through the empty streets at breakneck speed, too slow all the same for the trapeze artist’s impatience; for railway journeys, a whole compartment was reserved, in which the trapeze artist, as a possible though wretched alternative to his usual way of living, could pass the time up on the luggage rack; in the next town on their circuit, long before he arrived, the trapeze was already slung up in the theater and all the doors leading to the stage were flung wide open, all corridors kept free—yet the manager never knew a happy moment until the trapeze artist set his foot on the rope ladder and in a twinkling, at long last, hung aloft on his trapeze.
       Despite so many journeys having been successfully arranged by the manager, each new one embarrassed him again, for the journeys, apart from everything else, got on the nerves of the artist a great deal.
       Once when they were again traveling together, the trapeze artist lying on the luggage rack dreaming, the manager leaning back in the opposite window seat reading a book, the trapeze artist addressed his companion in a low voice. The manager was immediately all attention. The trapeze artist, biting his lips, said that he must always in the future have two trapezes for his performance instead of only one, two trapezes opposite each other. The manager at once agreed. But the trapeze artist, as if to show that the manager’s consent counted for as little as his refusal, said that never again would he perform on only one trapeze, in no circumstances whatever. The very idea that it might happen at all seemed to make him shudder. The manager, watchfully feeling his way, once more emphasized his entire agreement; two trapezes were better than one, besides it would be an advantage to have a second bar, more variety could be introduced into the performance. At that the trapeze artist suddenly burst into tears. Deeply distressed, the manager sprang to his feet and asked what was the matter, then getting no answer climbed up on the seat and caressed him, cheek to cheek, so that his own face was bedabbled by the trapeze artist’s tears. Yet it took much questioning and soothing endearment until the trapeze artist sobbed: “Only the one bar in my hands—how can I go on living!” That made it somewhat easier for the manager to comfort him; he promised to wire from the very next station for a second trapeze to be installed in the first town on their circuit; reproached himself for having let the artist work so long on only one trapeze; and thanked and praised him warmly for having at last brought the mistake to his notice. And so he succeeded in reassuring the trapeze artist, little by little, and was able to go back to his corner. But he himself was far from reassured; with deep uneasiness he kept glancing secretly at the trapeze artist over the top of his book. Once such ideas began to torment him, would they ever quite leave him alone? Would they not rather increase in urgency? Would they not threaten his very existence? And indeed the manager believed he could see, during the apparently peaceful sleep which had succeeded the fit of tears, the first furrows of care engraving themselves upon the trapeze artist’s smooth, childlike forehead.

Dario Fo - The Birth of the Jongleur

Dario Fo.

A jongleur was an itinerant medieval entertainer proficient in juggling, acrobatics, music, and recitation so in other words a Showman.
In 1997 Dario Fo was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his book Mistero Buffo, Comic Mysteries. But it wasn't just a book, it was ancient stories Fo had collected and rewritten into one-person plays. In his performances he acted out all the roles in the tradition of a medieval jongleur who presents the underdog's disrespect for authority. The Nobel Prize press release describe their reason as giving him the award for "emulating the jesters of the Middle Ages in scourging authority and upholding the dignity of the downtrodden."

"He if anyone merits the epithet of jester in the true meaning of that word. With a blend of laughter and gravity he opens our eyes to abuses and injustices in society and also the wider historical perspective in which they can be placed. Fo is an extremely serious satirist with a multifaceted oeuvre. His independence and clear-sightedness have led him to take great risks, whose consequences he has been made to feel while at the same time experiencing enormous response from widely differing quarters."

Mixing the sacred and the burlesque, the episodes subvert accepted wisdom and challenge entrenched authority. Among the play’s twelve episodes the a key text is the Birth of a Jongeleur, an excerpt of this play on the Nobel's Committee's website. Her is the story in full, prefaced by some words about the text by Dario Fo himself.

Fresco from 1100 showing a
Jongleur in the role of drunkard.

"What does this piece relate? We see a jongleur, explaining how, before he became a jongleur, he was a peasant, and that it was Christ who changed him into a jongleur. How did it happen that Christ gave him this new profession? It was because he used to own land, but a landowner tried to take the land away from him. I say no more, because there's not really much that I can add. The piece speaks for itself. Don't worry if at first you don't understand some of what I say. The sense, the gestures and sounds inolved will help you. By my gestures and by the sounds of the piece, you will easily grasp the meaning of this."

The following piece is based on a comic mystery first written down in the thirteenth century.

THE BIRTH OF THE JONGLEUR
(Translated by Ed Emery in 1983.)

Kind people, gather round and listen. The jongleur is here! I am the jongleur. I leap and pirouette, and make you laugh. I make fun of those in power, and I show you how puffed up and conceited are the big-shots who go around making wars in which we are the ones who get slaughtered. I reveal them forwhat they are. I pull out the plug, and... pssss... they deflate. Gather round, for now is the time and place that I begin to clown and teach you. I tumble, I sing and I joke! Look how my tongue whirls, almost like a knife. Remember that. But I have not always been... Well, I would like to tell you how it was that I came to be.

I was not born a jongleur; I didn't suddenly turn up as I am now, with a sudden gust from the skies and, hopla, there I was: 'Good day... Hello'. No! I am the result of a miracle! A miracle which was carried out on me. Do you believe me? This is how it came about! I was born a peasant. A peasant? Yes, a real countryman. I was happy, I was sad, I had no land. No! I worked as all of us work in these valleys, wherever I could. And one day I came by a mountain, a mountain all of rock. It was nobody's. I found that out. I asked people. 'No! Nobody wants this mountain!'
Well, I went up to its peak, and I scratched with my nails, and I saw that there was a little bit of earth there, and I saw that there was a little trickle of water coming down. So I began to scratch further. I went down to the riverbank, and I wore my fingers to the bone bringing earth up onto this mountain. And my children and my wife were there. My wife is sweet, sweet and fair, with two round breasts, and a gentle way of walking that reminds you of a heifer as she moves. Oh, she is beautiful! I love her, and it gives me pleasure to speak of her.
Anyway, I carried earth up in my own hands, and the grass grew so fast! Pfff... ! It grew of its own accord. You've no idea how beautiful it was! It was like gold dust! I would stick in my hoe, and pfff... a tree sprang forth. That earth was a miracle! A marvel! There were poplars, oaks and other trees everywhere. I sowed them when the moon was right; I knew what had to be done, and there, sweet, fine, handsome crops grew. There was chicory, thistles, beans, turnips, there was everything. For me, for us!
Oh, how happy I was! We used to dance, and then it would rain for days on end, and then the sun would blaze, and I would come, and go, and the moons were always right, and there was never too much wind, or too much mist. It was beautiful, beautiful! It was our land. This set of terrace was really beautiful. Every day I built another one. It was like the tower of Babel, beautiful, with all these terraces. It was paradise, paradise on earth! I swear it. And all the peasants used to pass by, saying:
'That's amazing, look what you've managed to bring forth out of this pile of rocks! How stupid that I never thought of that!'

And they were envious. One day, the lord of the whole valley passed by. He took a look and said:
'Where did this tower spring up from? Whose is this land?'
'It's mine,' I said. 'I made it myself, with these hands. It was nobody's.'
'Nobody's? That 'Nobody's' is a word that doesn't exist. It's mine!'
'No! It's not yours! I've even been to the lawyer, and he told me it was nobody's. I asked the priest, and he said it was nobody's. And I built it up, piece by piece.'
'It's mine, and you have to give it to me.'
'I cannot give it to you, sir. I cannot go and work for others.'
'I'll pay you for it;I'll give you money. Tell me how much you want.'
'No! No, I don't want money, because if you give me money, then I'll not be able to buy other land with the money that you give me, and I'll have to go an work for others again. No, I don't want to. I won't.'
'Give it to me.'
'No!'
Then he laughed, and went away. The next day the priest came, and he told me:
'The land belongs to he Lord of the Valley. Be sensible, give it up. Don't play the fool. Beware, because he is a powerful, evil lord. Give up this land. In the name of God, be sensible!'
'No!' I told him. 'I won't.'
And I made a rude gesture at im with my hand. Then the lawyer arrived too. He was sweating, by heaven, when he came up the mountain to find me.
'Be sensible. There are laws... and you should know that you can't... that, for you...'
'No! No!'
And I made a rude gesture at him too, and he went away, swearing.
But the lord didn't give up. No! He began by coming on hunting expeditions, and he sent all the hares chasing over my land. With his horses and his friends, he galloped to and fro across my land, breaking down my hedges. Then one day, he set fire to all my land. It was summer; a drought. He set fire to the whole of my mountain, and burned everything, even my animals and my house. But I wouldn't leave! I waited, and that night it began to rain. After the rain, I began to clear up, and put the fence posts back in position, and replace stones, and bring up fresh earth, and water everything. I was determined, by heaven, that I wouldn't move from there! And I did not move!
But one day he arrived, along with all his soldiers, and he was laughing. We were in the fields, my children, my wife and I. We were working. He arrived. He got down from his horse. He undid his breeches. He came over to my wife, grabbed her, threw her to the ground, ripped off her skirt and... I tried to move, but the soldiers held me fast. And he leapt upon her, and took her as if she were a cow. And I and the children had to stand there, with our eyes bursting from our heads, watching... I moved forward, with a leap. I managed to free myself. I took a hoe, and I shouted:
'You bastards!'
'Stop,' my wife cried. 'Don't do it. That's all they want, that's exactly what they are waiting for. If you raise your stick, then they will kill you. Don't you understand? They want to kill you and take away your land. That's all they want. He is bond to defend himself. It's not worth taking your stand against him. You have no honour to defend. You're poor, you're a peasant, a country person, you cannot go thinking of honour and dignity. That is stuff for rich people, for lords and nobles They are entitled to get angry if people rape their wives and daughters. But you're not! Let itAnd I began to weep, weeping and looking all around. The children were weeping too. And the sodiers, with the lord of the valley, suddenly went off, laughing, happy and satisfied. We wept, how we wept! We could not even look each other in the eye. And when we went into the village, they began throwing rocks and stones at us. They shouted:
'Oh you ox, you who don't have the strength to defend your honour, because you have no honour. You are an animal. The lord has mounted your wife, and you stood there, wihout saying a word, for a handful of earth. You wretch!'
And when my wife went around the village:
'Whore, cow!' they shouted after her. And then they ran off. They would not even let her go intochurch. Nobody would let her! And the children couldn't go out in the village without everyone picking on them. And nobody would even look us in the eye. My wife ran off! I never saw her again; I don't know where she ended up. And my children wouldn't look at me. They fell ill, and wouldn't even cry. They died. I was left alone, alone, with this land. I didn't know what to do. One evening, I took a piece of rope, and threw it over a rafter. I put the noose around my neck, and said to myself:
'Right. Now I am going to end it all, now!'

I was just about to do it, just about to hang myself, when I felt a and on my shoulder. I turned round, and saw a fellow with big eyes and a pale face.
He says to me: 'Could you give me something to drink?'
'I ask you, in heaven's name, is this really the moment o come asking somebody for something to drink, when he's just about to hang himself?'
I look at him, and see that he too has the face of a poor wretch. Then I look further, and see that there are two mor men, and they too have faces full of suffering.
'Alright, I'll give you something to drink. And then I'll hang myself.'
So I go to get them something to drink, and I take a good look at them:
'Instead of something to drink, you people look as if you could do with something to eat! It's been days and days since I last cooked anything to eat... But anyway, if you want, there is food.'
I took a pan and put it on the fire to heat up some broad beans. I gave them some, one bowl apiece, and how they ate! I, personally, wasn't very hungry. 'I'll wait till they've finshed eating,' I thought, 'and then I'll hang myself.' Anyway, while they were eating, the one with the biggest eyes, who looked like a right poor devil, began to smile. He said:
'That's a terrible story, hat you're going to hang yourself. I know why you want to do it, though. You have lost everything, your wife, your children, and all you are left with is your land. Yes, I know how it is! But if I were you, I woldn't do it.'
And he carried on eating. How he ate! Then, in the end, he laid aside the utensils, and said:
'Do you know who I am?'
'No, but I've got an idea that you might be Jesus Christ.'
'Well done! You've guessed correctly. And this is St Peter, and that over there is St Mark.'
'Pleased to meet you! And what are you doing in these parts?'
'My friend, you've given me something to eat, and now I'm going to give you something to say.'
'Something to say? What is this 'something'?'
'You poor fellow! It's right that you have held onto your land; it is right that you don't want bosses over you; it is right that you have had the strength not to give in; it's right... I like you. You're a good man, a strong man. But you're missing something which is also right, and which you should have: here and here. (He points to his forehead and to his mouth) You shouldn't remain here stuck to your land. You should move around the country, and when people throw stones at you, you should tell them, and help them to understand, and deflate that great bladder of a landlord. You should deflate him with the sharpness of your tongue, and drain him of all his poison and his stinking bile. You must crush these nobles, these priests, and all those who surround them: notaries, lawyers, etc. Not only for your own good, for your own land, but also for those like yourself who don't have land, who have nothing, and whose only right is the right to suffer, and who have no dignity to boast of. Teach them to survive with their brains, not just with their hands!'
'But don't you understand? I am not able. I have a tongue which refuses to budge. I stumble over every word. I have no education, and my brain is weak and useless. How am I supposed to do he things you suggest, and go about speaking to other people?'
'Don't worry. You will now see a miracle.'
He took my head in his hands, and drew me to him. Then he said:

'I am Jesus Christ. I have come to give you the power of speech. And this tongue of yours will lash, and will slash like a sword, deflating inflated balloons all over the land. You will speak out against bosses, and crush them, so that others can understand and learn, so that others can laugh at them and make fun of them, because it is only with laughter that the bosses will be destroyed. When you laugh at the rulers, the ruler goes from being a mountain, to being a little molehill, and then a nothingness. Here, I shall give you a kiss, and that will enable you to speak.' He kissed me on the mouth. He kissed me for a long time. And suddenly I felt my tongue dart about inside my head, and my brain began to move, and my legs began to move with a mind of their own, and I went out in the streets of the village, and began to shout:

'Gather round, people! Gather round! hear ye! The jongleur is here! I am going to play a satire for you. I am going to joust with the lord of the land, for he is a great balloon, and I am going to burst him with the sharpness of my tongue. I shall tell you everything, how things come and go, and how it is not God who steals! It is those who steal and go unpunished... it is those who make big books of laws... They are the ones... And we must speak out, speak out. Listen, people – these rulers must be broken, they must be crushed...!

Ray Bradbury and the Carnival

Ray Bradbury is one of the all time great science fiction writers, although he does not particularly like this label.
“I've only done one science fiction book and that's Farenheit 451, based on reality,”  "And his best known outer space work, the Martian Chronicles, has about as much about the Red Planet as a Mars chocolate bar." (Conceptual Fiction.) Nobody likes to be pigeon holed, apart from pigeons of course, particularly not someone who is the author of more than five hundred published works. All this aside, here on the pages of the Illuminated Showman we search for the Carnivalesque origins of things and yet again we have found what we were looking for. Thanks to Hey Rube Circus for drawing our attention to this.

Ray Bradbury, the Showman, accounts for his habit of writing every day originating in a tale that easily could be believed to be spawned by the man's prodigious imagination. But then again as Edward Gant says with the knowledge of a Guild's man, "The Truths of Life lies least of all in the Facts." So perhaps these Seeds of inspiration for the young Bradbury is as close to truth that is possible.

Lon Chaney Jr as the Hunchback

"Bradbury attributes his lifelong habit of writing every day to two incidents. The first, which occurred when he was three years old when his mother took him to Lon Chaney's performance of the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and the second, which occurred in 1932 when a carnival entertainer, Mr. Electrico,
touched him on the nose with an electrified sword, made his hair stand on end, and shouted, "Live forever!" It was from then that Bradbury wanted to live forever and decided on his career as an author in order to do what he was told: live forever. It was at that age that Bradbury first started to do Magic. Magic was his first great love. If he had not discovered writing, he would have become a magician." (Wikipedia)
And lo and behold on the glorious interweb we find the Master himself recount the incident of meeting Mr Electrico and the Illustrated man.

Mr Electro, sculpture by Christopher Slatof

In his work, this Carnival truth is supported by his first published collection of short stories being titled: Dark Carnival, and his second The Illustrated Man. The pinnacle of the prodigious writers flirtation with the fairground is found in his 1962 novel 'Something Wicked this Way Comes.' Which title is lifted straight from Shakespeare's Macbeth: 'by the prickling of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.'

'The carnival rolls in sometime after midnight, ushering in Halloween a week early. The shrill siren song of a calliope beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. In this season of dying, Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery. And two boys will discover the secret of its smoke, mazes, and mirrors; two friends who will soon know all too well the heavy cost of wishes. . .and the stuff of nightmare.' (Amazon) 

The tale is of two boys on their way to adulthood. Together they tread paths through the forest of Good and Evil, shrouded in shadows of the looming mountain of Ageing. All this clad in the guise of a sinister carnival that comes to town. Their meeting with Coogar and Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show push the boys to men during one memorable night.

The story is described as a horror or dark fantasy novel, and that may be, but it is also deeply poetic. Bradbury digs deeply into his themes in beautifully crafted sentences and descriptions. Here is an example from a monologue delivered by Charles Halloway, father of Will, one of the story's two boy-protagonists.

"First things first. Let’s bone up on history. If men had wanted to stay
bad forever they could have, agreed?...Somewhere we turned in our
carnivore’s teeth and started chewing blades of grass. We been
working mulch as much as blood, into our philosophy, for a quite a
few lifetimes. Since then we measure ourselves up the scale from
apes, but not half so high as angels…. I suppose one night hundreds of
thousands of years ago in a cave by a night fire when one of those
shaggy men wakened to gaze over the banked coals at his woman, his
children, and thought of their being cold, dead, gone forever. Then he
must have wept. And he put out his hand in the night to the woman
who must die some day and to the children who must follow her. And
for a little bit next morning, he treated them somewhat better, for he
saw that they, like himself, had the seed of night in them…."

In 1983 Disney made a movie based on the book which is surprisingly interesting, in a nostalgic, fairy tale kind of way. I still have fond memories of some of Disney's films from my own childhood, perhaps most notably 20.000 Leagues Under the Sea. But as always when a project is undertaken by the media giant a disneyfication happens. The examples are many and nefarious enough, like how they make Charles Halloway a librarian rather than the janitor at the library.

Although receiving mediocre reviews the movie is not terrible. Here is the trailer and a link to the whole thing, so you can choose how long you would like to dwell on this tale by how interested you are in its themes, and execution. Ray Bradbury served as screen writer for the film and later said it was one of the better adaptions of his work.

Here comes the link to the first in a series of 7 links to the whole movie.

Saved by Sideshow - Rasmus Nielsen

A Carny Hero

On 8^th of July, 1946, two days after the worst circus catastrophe in recorded history, the Hartford circus fire, a local paper called the Hartford Tribune, ran the headline reading:

SAVED BY SIDESHOW FREAK

Underneath was a picture of a short stout woman with a young boy of about six, both holding up their unused tickets to the fateful matinee-show where 169 patrons of the Greatest show on Earth was burnt to death.

‘I had bought tickets to the circus and took Frankie Jr down early so he could experience the midway.’ Frieda was quoted as saying.

At one of the Sideshow stages they stopped to watch the ballyhoo presentation of the sensational Scandinavian muscle man Rasmus Nielsen. I have had an interest in this unique sideshow performer for some time so reading this article thrilled me, to the point of creating a routine as an homage to him  back in 2003, but I digress. This veteran showman with the Ringling Brothers Sideshow was no ordinary strongman. His body was covered crown to heal in tattoos. Two fat steel rings pierced his nipples, like bones through a savage nose. His feat of strength and endurance consisted of clamping his nipple and chest flesh between two metal bars attached to a chain wrapped around an anvil! The wing nut screws tightened around his flesh hard enough to allow him to lift the 250 pound blacksmith tool off the ground. As he struggled he let out a stream of offensive guttural sounds.

‘To transcend the pain,’ the sideshow talker had explained. His noises and screams invigorated the crowd but, according to the article, it scared Frieda’s boy witless.

‘I was mesmerized by this barbaric performance, when Frankie Jr. tugged at my skirt. Looking at him I saw horror in his eyes. I got no idea what scared him so much but he was terrified and no amount of mollycoddling was going to stop it. Actually it just got worse and worse, until he screamed louder than the strongman himself. It was embarrassing, so I grabbed his arm and we left.’ Frieda said.

Her boy was so gripped by fright removing him from the strongman’s display didn’t calm him. His piercing screams, like “from a beaten dog,” became an ominous augury of the looming arson havoc.

The Gentle Strongman

After about half an hour of fruitless coercion with everything from treats to threats Frieda took little Frank home, hoping to be able to use her unused tickets for the evenings performance.

‘It gives me goose bumps to think about. Now I just want to thank Rasmus Nielson, the Scandinavian Strongman for saving our lives.’ Frieda finished.

The Day We Killed Mystery

From an old newspaper review.

The Joseph Rockstacker Illuminated Circus, Carnival and Menagerie have come to Anchor for the coming week’s festivities and I was sent to see the sights.

The spot chosen, as all my readers have probably already observed, is the sports fields by the swimming hall, and never have I seen it looking so splendid. The grand Big Top, the Ferris wheel and the old Steam Carousel were all there. I wandered the Midway and took it all in, and a fine sight it was. I have chosen to use this culture column, not to review its main attraction, the grand Circus, but rather I want to convey what I experienced in a most singular and curious side attraction.

I was drawn to the anomalous little tent because it seemed to promise a different, almost anachronistic kind of Magic. The beautifully ornate woodcarvings on the show-front depicted strange symbolic images of Magicians. Their style was different from the other banners and circus pictures in that they seemed to hold some deeper significance outside of my understanding.

To me it had the air of times past, when Magicians were not just tawdry additions to children’s parties or entertainment on cruise ships or shopping malls. My interest was piqued, so I paid my dollar to enter and found inside the same style of decoration. The canvas walls were covered with painted symbolic depictions. One that caught my attention had a man climbing a freestanding ladder. He was almost at the top and held a key in his outstretched hand. Perched atop the wobbly structure his key pointed towards an eye with a keyhole pupil. The atmospheric imagery was indeed most esoteric and made me think more of secret initiatory fraternities, rather than venues for lighthearted sideshow amusement.

The little stage had deep red velvet curtains, with the letters BIS embroidered on them. They opened and with very little bravado an unassuming, but fiery showman with a big mustache came out. He smiled, seeming genuinely pleased that so many had chosen to join him in the afternoon’s spectacle. He began an oration about himself and his origin as an assistant in his father’s magic show then proceeded to perform a series of funny and baffling routines.

I found him a very amicable Showman, and could not help thinking I would very much like to count this chap amongst my friends. More than being fascinated with his particular tricks, I was captivated by the sense of genuine warmth and deep enthused passion that radiated from this curious prestidigitator. There was no shadow of doubt that this man loved what he did, and so did we. The crowd was all very much engaged, laughing and carrying on.

In one routine the Showman slipped an over-sized dice into a small cabinet with four doors, and promptly claimed it vanished, although it seemed obvious to us that it merely slid back and forth, with the clever conjuror always opening the wrong door to demonstrate the dice’s absence. The comedy of errors and his witty banter made frivolity rise to almost ecstatic heights. The children and more boisterous of us cried out, half chocked with laughter, at the misunderstandings, trying to get the Showman to open this or that door. In the end, when he finally opened all four doors of his dice cabinet, it became apparent he had indeed made the dice disappear and all the misunderstandings and fun that ensued was merely part of this man’s terrific showmanship. With many jubilant members of the audience wiping tears of joy from their cheeks, the lights dimmed. In the stark light from the spotlight, as dust rose from the dirty showground through the beam of light, the Showman proclaimed:

“It is time!” and held up a dead twig and a piece of red paper. In one swift motion he scrunched it up and stuck it on the end of the twig. Then he stepped towards some men in the front row who were drinking beers. With a slight nod he picked and pulled the green labels of their bottles. The men looked mystified by this strange behavior. The Showman then stuck them onto the twig and with this finished a crude imitation of a red flower. To this there was a smattering of goodhearted applause, but it also raised a few eyebrows in wonder of where this was going. The Showman continued with a serious tone:

“What power in us can transform what we see every day into something beautiful?” Of course no one answered this rhetorical question, and he continued to answer it for us.

“Love.” He said. “Love transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary. Love lets us see the wonderful in the wonderful, lets us realize the beauty of what we thought ordinary and lets us discover the mystery of life wherever we turn.”

With that the Showman snapped his fingers, and here I must admit I don’t know if the transformation happened just then, or if this was when I noticed it, but the paper, beer label and stick had indeed turned into the most lush and perfectly formed rose. The inanimate had come alive, life from death, the mystery of mysteries. The Showman stepped forward and graciously let the ladies in the front row smell its exquisite fragrance, so strong in fact, even yours truly, could smell it from the midst of the crowd. Then, back in the centre of the stage, the Showman snapped his fingers again and with this the rose ignited and in a flash of instant fire it was gone. A gasp rose from the crowd and a man turned to me with an expression of awe on his face, his mouth moving, but no sound passed his lips.

Here I must interject that this might not sound like the greatest of conjuring effects, but dear reader, you must understand that at this stage in the performance this simple effect somehow struck the deepest and most resonant chord with myself, and dare I say the entire congregation. Perhaps precisely because of its simplicity, we the audience could see the miracle and mystery clearer. The applause was different than for all preceding feats, more quiet, but also more intense and heartfelt. I thought this would be the end, but little did I know.

“Now, we all just witnessed something extraordinary. We saw and together touched the mysterious. And I know you are wondering how it was executed. How can one do such a thing, what is the secret? Where did the rose go?” Murmur spread through the crowded canvas room.

“You all seem like warm and good people so I will let you take the final choice. Would you like me to reveal this secret? Show you where the rose returned to? Just let it all be explained, mundane and deflated? Or would you instead like to end this performance carrying this feeling of beautiful unexplained mystery with you? I will let you decide which feeling to leave with.”

I believe it was one of the guys in the dirty shirts wearing trucker caps that first said it, but regardless, as soon as one had uttered it we all shouted for the secret. The Showman raised his hands, but said nothing. He removed his jacket, unbuttoned his shirt and with his fingernails grabbed his flesh and tore. Before my eyes the Showman ripped open his chest. Blood poured from the rip and as the wound opened I saw the ribs beneath. He pried his fingers between them and broke them apart. An awful sound, somewhere between stepping on a dry stick and cracking a lettuce, made my skin crawl. Ribs wrenched open, he forced his right hand in and after some searching proceeded to pull out his heart. The thick veins and arteries hung long, thick and dripping from the still beating heart. With each beat blood flowed in great abundance out of the torn arteries. The Showman, pale and white as a ghost, again with his nails, tore his heart apart and from its core he revealed the rose. Gently holding its flower he began pulling it out. It’s thorns turned the flesh of the vain it protruded from inside out as he tore it free and held it forth with no strength in his arm. For a few moments he inspected us with a quizzical look upon his ashen face. His chest still open, blood still flowing. No one clapped. No one spoke. Then he fell, and was dead.

Suddenly the lights turned up to full and the sidewalls of the tent rolled up like spring-loaded roller curtains and the crowded midway looked in on us all. The spell was broken and in that instance I understood we had just killed Mystery.