The Big Apple Circus

when i was childless in springfield, my sister came to visit and we went early one morning to see the elephants and people set up a circus.  my sister is so much fun - she gets right into it. once she went to see the tall ships setting up and got offered a job aboard!  and at dawn at the fairgrounds, she got offered a job traveling with and setting up the circus! (she turned down both offers)

that circus was the last "old style" one i ever went to; it was a real turn-off.

but  years later in hanover, along came The Big Apple Circus!  using the excuse of my child, i went, and it was all new and shiny, no mistreated wild animals, no scarred and wrinkled performers, one ring, a 'european style' circus as i later learned.  up close and personal!

want to know what it's like to be in the circus? (i once seriously considered going to clown school in florida). PBS just did a series on the inside story of the people and history of The Big Apple Circus. six episodes. i'm loving it. highly recommended -- better than a soap opera or mystery series!

i don't get TV reception, but i hook my laptop up to my big flatscreen and watch it online. hooray for PBS!  you can watch it too here http://www.pbs.org/opb/circus/video/

see Paul Binder and Grandma and the circus "family" in the subculture of the circus world!  do clowns cry? what becomes of an aerealist who falls 80 feet? do 8th generation circus people get along with noobs? suppose an act cancels the night before opening? and more!

avatars?

for his children to play with, he carved 3,500 individual pieces from scrap wood and hand painted them in his spare time over 40 years. that's the Kirk Bros Circus by Edward Kirk. this includes the animals, the aerialists, the pop-corn vendors, wagons, tent poles, and the audience, and more, each individual...and the arms are attached, not clothes-pin style! the Shelburne Museum has this on display - it's huge!

 the museum also has the most amazing collection of over 500 old circus posters, too!

and if that's not enough, it has Roy Arnold's miniature carved circus parade, scaled 1' = 1 foot, and it is 525 feet in length. Shelburne Museum has a special building dedicated to it so that you walk through a curved narrow building unable to see ahead too far, as if the circus were coming along past you. there are 400 horses, each individually carved. and very ornate wagons for each performer or animal! one wagon, based on a real one, has 40 horses pulling it. the real one had reins that weighed 72 lbs!
 
i wish i could find an online in-color picture of a particularly ornate colorful poster with a great deal of captions using all the literary devices known to circus, (hyperbole, aliteration, testimonials) to entice the customer -- it's Minting the Marvel who rode his unicycle up and down a steep high spiral in the Adam Forepaugh and Sells Bros circus...the MOST HAZARDOUS JOURNEY EVER TAKEN BY MAN! hah...he wasn't even knitting!