Celebrity Circus

NBC is going forward with plans to film and present "Celebrity Circus" some time this fall. As much as I love circus, this is not something I'm looking forward to.

As with most "with the stars" type reality productions, turning has-been and c-list "stars" into something they are not is nothing new, and not particularly noteworthy nor entertaining. Anyone can sort of learn to do circus tricks. Even I could. But to do them well, and with style, and with all of the sparkle and spangle that is Circus, is beyond what any celebrity/celebutante can accomplish in a mere few weeks of "rehearsals" and practice.

Color me unimpressed. I believe ABC had the same idea a few months back, but their project has been canned.

Circus Flora 2008 Season

Last week in the mail I received my annual request for support flier from Circus Arts Foundation of Missouri, the parent of Circus Flora. I wish I were independently wealthy and could give them a big fat check, but I will have to settle, once again, for going to several shows and buying my tickets at full price.

This year's show has a theme, as all years do. This year's theme is "Escape to Sherwood Forest." The theme is usually loosely held into a storyline wrapped around the various performances, but it's all fun in the end.

I am looking forward to making myself into a pest on the lot for the few weeks leading up to their opening on June 5. I hope that this year I'll actually get to see the tent go up, and to interview a few more performers.

Parental Dilemmas

From the Washington Post comes an article about the parental dilemma of taking children to the circus.

I probably don't have to tell you what I think of the crackpot who won't be taking her child to the zoo because "wild animals should be in the wild." I also probably don't have to tell you she's one of the PETA protesters.

Quick, Run!!

So apparently yesterday in Maryland, some Ringling Bros. zebras escaped. This has happened before, most recently in Colorado Springs.

Those zebras...people have always been fascinated by them, but they are the animal most likely NOT to be able to be domesticated. They retain their wildness no matter how much training is administered, and even those born in captivity (which is also rare) keep their wildness. Their genes haven't changed in multiple millenniums.

Go, Zebras, go!!

Sherwood Forest

Circus Flora, my all-time favorite circus, has set its theme for this year's show. "Sherwood Forest" will feature the usual cast of performers, including The Ianna Spirit Riders, Giovanni Zoppe (Nino), the St. Louis Arches, and Cecil McKinnon. The Haute Ecole horse act and the Flying Cortez will also be featured, along with the Flying Wallendas.

It's going to be another great show. Yes, I'm biased, but I love Circus Flora and it means I get more chances to hang out and learn more about circus. And that's always a good thing.

The shows will run from June 5-22, 2008.

And Great Joy Was Heard Througout the Land...

Well, probably not really. But joy for me. B.E. Trumble, mud show blogger and sometime Patch, is going to be touring with and blogging from a mudshow again this year. I so missed following his adventures last year, when he wasn't traveling with a show. In 2006 he was with Carson and Barnes. He will spend this summer with Culpepper-Merriweather, the same circus my husband toured with in 2005.

I did an email interview with Trumble two years ago as part of the research for my book. So I have a semi-understanding of what he does. I'm not sure what his position on Culpepper-Merriweather will be, but I'm sure to find out. I'm really looking forward to reading his updates.

If you want to read along, the link to his blog is to the right.

Gibsonton

Great article on Gibsonton, aka, Gibtown or "Freak Town." I have never been but Klown and I intend to at some point. After this article, it just makes me want to visit even worse.

That and some of the circus performers I've been interviewing lately call Gibtown home. And I don't consider any of them "freaks," either.

New Social Space for Circus People

A new social space has been created for circus people. There are not too many people there yet, but I'm hoping there will be. It will be a great place for me to gather interviews and information on circus. I hope, anyway.

The new site is CircuSpace.com. I have a page there, as does my husband, and plenty of performers at this point. I would like to see some promoters there, and workmen, and butchers, and etc. I hope the site evolves to include all types.

Will I see you there?

More Weird Mail

Apparently another Linda Robertson fan wrote me today. I wonder how they are finding my blog, because I can't even find it on the search engines doing normal keyword searches. Hmmm. Take time to read the woman's signature, and also her closing quote, which I find quite amusing.

FROM: Jan - "janimalm@yahoo.com"
TO: Susabelle@without-a-net.com
SUBJ: Illiteracy big problem with circus folk

What do you mean, the email wasn't signed? It says right there, "FROM: Priscilla Gargalis". While you wish Linda RoberTson a recovery, let me trust karma to give her what she gives the animals: abuse and suffering. "Animal advocate", my natural-born white liberal ass.

Jan McClellan

A-SAVES

Arizona Society for the Abolition of Violent & Exploitive Spectacles

www.stopcovance.com

"In remembrance of Jerry Falwell, may his promotion of bigotry, intolerance, and hate die along with his fat, unhealthy body."

Hmmm.  And here just this past week I was thinking about writing an article about "Karmic Footprints" for
a local publication.  And yes, of course I wrote her back:

FROM: Susabelle@without-a-net.com
TO:     Jan - janimalm@yahoo.com
SUBJ:   Illiteracy big problem with circus folk

Well, see there, you signed yours.  "Jan McClellan."  Ms. Gargalis, if 
that is her real name (or maybe it's a he, hard to say) doesn't know how 
to write proper correspondence.  All correspondence should be signed.  A 
return email address in the "from" line does not constitute a 
signature.  Yes, this is probably a matter of semantics but I find that 
people who don't sign their emails are being haphazardous with their 
words and their intentions.  You would never write a letter without 
signing your name, and email is a form of correspondence, it deserves a 
signature.

I've got to wonder...how did you find my blog in the first place?  I'm 
curious about that since it has never been advertised and I'm not linked 
anywhere that I know of.  The numbers of views to the blog have been 
rather limited in the year or so I've had it up.

-Susabelle Kelmer

Weird Mail

Today in my inbox for this blog I received the following email:

FROM: Priscilla Gargalis "pgargalis@yahoo.com"
TO: Susabelle@without-a-net.com
SUBJ: Linda Roberson [sic]

You've got to be kidding!!! You're calling Linda Roberson and animal advocate????
She's nothing more than an animal abuser....just like the rest of the circus freaks!

I love unsigned emails. And emails with misspellings, like misspelling the name of the person she was writing about (it's ROBERTSON, you "freak", with a T). I did write her back:

FROM: susabelle@without-a-net.com
TO: Priscilla Gargalis "pgargalis@yahoo.com"
SUBJ: Linda Roberson

I don't know who you are. Perhaps you'd like to enlighten me.

-Susabelle Kelmer

At least I know how to sign my name to emails. I wonder if I'll hear back from her.

Spangles, Elephants, Violets, and Me

I've just started reading Victoria Cristiani Rossi's memoir, Spangles, Elephants, Violets, and Me. I've gotten through the acknowledgments, forward, and prologue. This is going to be an interesting book, if I can keep up with how she bops from time to time in her life.

She alludes to the dark side of circus life, and the particular scandals the Cristiani family were accused of over the years. She also alludes to a bitter fight that estranged her from most of the family for many years. All of these things make me very curious. It will be interesting to see how she covers things from her inside point of view, having been raised inside Circus. It might give me a bit more specific information on building the circus of my novel.

Linda Robertson

I received word through Circus Vern that Linda Robertson, probably best known as an elephant trainer/handler and circus and circus animal rights advocate, has had a severe stroke or aneurysm and is in a coma. Her chances for recovery are unknown at this time.

I might not have noticed or even read the notice from Vern, except that I interviewed Linda Robertson last year for my novel. In addition to working with the Rosaire Foundation in Sarasota, where she lives, she also has traveled extensively and keeps an eye on the underground animal freedom movements. She probably knows more about the inner workings of PETA than anyone else on the planet.

In between circus work, she kept herself solvent working as a paralegal. She had offered to give my name to a publication lawyer when I was ready, to help me get Without a Net into publication. She was a resource I was keeping in touch with. So it is sad to know she is so ill.

My prayers are with her for her recovery.

I may have found my direction

As those who have read this blog, even infrequently, have noted, Without a Net is lacking somewhat in direction. I really have had no major "thread" to hold the story together. I have plenty of elements, plenty of activities to take up time and talk about circus, but no one good thread to pull them all together.

I finally think I landed on that thread the other day. My main female character need a passion to follow. She needed more than learning about the circus to make her story interesting enough to read. I find that I may have been focusing on the wrong primary characters for my story. My female lead is fine, but the male lead is weak, and always has been. I won't be replacing him, but he will become more of a sub-character to the more dynamic and strong character I will allow to take the focus.

Of course, this means much of the early novel needs to change to catch up, but that's okay. I now know what I want to do with the story, and that will make it all that much easier to write.

I want to be in this kind of shape

This guy was filmed performing at age 97. He died late in 2007 and the ripe old age of 98. He had never stopped performing. Wow.

Circus Chimera Won't Tour 2008

Yes, I know, long time no post. I managed to survive NaNoWriMo and my writing blog then the holiday season. Quite literally, it has been two months since I've even thought about Without A Net. It is time to get back to it. As any other writer will tell you, there are plenty of ideas in my head, and plenty of new projects I could start, but I really need to finish this one before I get any further away from it.

So, to get back into the swing, I'm catching up on my Circus Vern emails. Vern emails out all kinds of interesting tidbits about circus and performers and tours. Every email is chock-full of info that I can use both in my novel and in my blog. Since I am also about two months behind on reading Circus Vern, as well, it is taking me a while to catch up. But one particular entry caught my attention, and I read it, even though it was out of the order of what I was reading.

Circus Chimera, based in Hugo, Oklahoma, will not be touring this year. The reason is not gas prices, insurance rates, or lack of sponsors. The reason is that Chimera can no longer legally hire Mexican workmen to travel with the circus. A change in the H2B visa application process and number caps has virtually assured that Chimera, and virtually no other circus, can hire temporary Mexican workers on legal visas. These workers are the ones that set up the tents, feed and care the animals, run the concessions trailers, drive the trucks, and do all manner of physical labor. They are paid a reasonable sum, about $550 a week, for this work. They definitely work hard, and get little sleep at night. They are certainly worth more than they are being paid, but the pay is not terrible, either. Many of these Mexican workers spend 8 months or more of the year traveling with a circus like Chimera, and return to Mexico and their families for the remainder of the year. If they can get work in Mexico, it pays very poorly and is intermittent. Circus work gives them a reasonable income. Chimera hires up to 50 of these types of legal workers every season.

What I find a bit strange is that American men and women don't want to make $550 a week and travel the country for 8 or more months. Yes, the work is hard, but many local laborers don't make $550 a week, and on the circus, your meals and lodging are provided! If you have your own method of travel such as an RV, then you usually also receive mileage payments from the circus for your travel. It's not a bad wage for an honest day's work.

It saddens me that circuses will be some of the "collateral damage" from the immigration crackdown. What is even more sad is that these were legal workers, brought it to work a limited amount of time, at a specific job, under a sponsored employer, and then returned to Mexico when they were done. Many circuses may have no choice but to start employing illegal labor in order to stay in operation, or simply give up and close down entirely. This will potentially put thousands of people out of work, and remove a staple of summer entertainment from our communities.

That is probably the saddest thought of all.

Catching Up

It has been a month since I've posted on this blog. It isn't dead, just on haitus. I've been busy for the month of November with NaNoWriMo, a novel-writing process that takes you from your first word to a 50,000 novel in one month. It is the reason this particular blog exists, as I started it last year as I was working on Without A Net. This novel is still in process and I'll be getting back to work on it shortly.

I have received word that the theme for 2008's Circus Flora is Sherwood Forest and the Robin Hood tale. As fun as the Marrakesh show was, it didn't feature my favorite performer quite the way I would have liked, so I'm going to hope that the Sherwood Forest theme uses Nino to better advantage.

Also, the second Zoppe Family Newsletter is up and ready for reading at www.zoppe.net. They have added quite a few videos to youtube lately; a simple search should bring them up. One that I really appreciated seeing was someone's amateur filming of a massive storm that came through and tried to take down their show near Chicago this summer. It is pretty scary film but shows just how resilient the troupe is, and how quickly they could put things to right. Since I am using a storm as a major plot point in Without a Net, it is great to see how the real thing is handled.

Klown and I did not get to go to Colorado together and I had to go alone. The illness of a close family member made it impossible for us to make the trip as planned. This messed up a lot of things for us, and I did not get to see the Ringling "no ring" show. Klown did, and said it really wasn't that great, but he did get to spend several days hanging around with the Ringling clowns at their clown alley. A friend of Klown's, Larry, has been trying to get back on with Ringling and lucked into a contract to join the show in Michigan and then at winter quarters, where they will begin rehearsing for shows that will begin in January. I got to meet Larry, he stayed over at our house right around the time I got back from Colorado, and I'm glad he's getting another chance with Ringling. Of course, it made Klown long for wanting to go with the show as well. This is a yearly thing for Klown, every time Ringling is in town, and I just sit back and let him have at the fantasy, at least for the few days that the circus is in town.

That's all the updates I have at the moment; I hope to get back to regular posting in this blog within the next few weeks.

Big Bertha

Klown and I are taking a week-long trip to Colorado. We'd be taking an extra day or two, except we have to get back in town in time to see Ringling's tour of St. Louis. This year, we get the Blue Show, which is the experiment in "no ring." Two years ago when this show debuted there was a lot of discussion in the circus community about whether or not this was a good idea.

I have not seen it so I don't know. I'm sure I'll be sharing my comments here!

When I first started researching circus, one of the books I read was Water for Elephants. I highly recommend this book as a pretty accurate description of circus in the 1920's. The love story is sort of unnecessary, and a lot of the parts wrap up nice and neatly at the end when they really shouldn't have. But overall, the vision of circus portrayed is darned close to what it was like to travel on the big trains of the old days. In that book, they referred to Ringling as the "Big Bertha." I've seen that description made in other places, as well.

It shows just how big Ringling was in those early days. It is still big, much bigger than most other traveling shows. It is truly the only one of its kind any more. It must perform in huge arenas and has a support staff behind the scenes that can number in the hundreds. The only thing that might come close to it in size of support staff might be Cirque du Soleil, but the Cirque show can't compare in size of performance and performers. There really is nothing to compare to Big Bertha.

And in those old days, Big Bertha was something aspire to. Performers that ended up on Ringling gained a measure of unearned respect that couldn't be matched. Even today, to get on with Ringling is a great way to add to your resume.

I enjoy the Ringling shows. It's another side of circus.

The Christianis

The Klown just spent four days clowning with Circus Maximus in Jackson, Mississippi. Several members of the Christiani family were performing, and he spent each evening with them. I would have loved to have been a fly on his clown hat for all of that!

The Christiani family has been performing for at least 8 generations. I first heard of them when I read Mud Show by Fred Prowledge; in that work of non-fiction one branch of Christianis was travelling with Hoxie Brothers Circus in the early 70's. Some of the children from that story grew up and have recently performed with Zoppe.

Klown got a lot of circus lore from sitting around and listening. That would have been the fun part for me. The Christianis are also apparently in a book that is a mix of truth and bull, that I want to read. I may have to wait until after November, however, as I need to concentrate on this year's National Novel Writing Month. Even though I haven't yet finished last year's novel, I still like the process of writing that Nano offers, and will attempt another romance novel, tentatively titled A Cabin in the Woods.

Lost Interview

For two years now I've been attempting to get interviews with staff of a certain circus. Every time I talk to someone with their organization, I'm told "I'll pass on your request" but then never hear anything back. And when I do actually get ahold of a real person, they are extremely aloof, almost to the point of refusing to even look at me.

It's very weird.

All I wanted was an interview with some key players as research for my book. And of course I explained this to them when introducing myself, assuring them that I was NOT writing some horror circus story, nasty expose, or other negative piece. I go even further to assure them that I'm not a PETA freak and have no desire to see their circus put in a bad light.

But it doesn't seem to matter, I still get the evil eye and lack of response. It's a shame, as I would really like to have their experiences as part of the background of my novel.

Looks like I might get a writing day!

I might just get to get in some good writing time Sunday. I am going to have brunch with some good friends, hubby is working most of the day, after brunch I'm dropping Stinky off at Ampguard for the afternoon...this means a pretty quiet house all afternoon. The girls are pretty self-sufficient, and the little one will nap most of the afternoon. I'm already making plans for a crockpot dinner so I don't have to cook a big meal either.

The only "down" side to all this is that it's going to be 92 degrees, and my car has no a/c. I keep hoping for fall, but it's not here yet. They are promising a cool-down in the next few days. In the meantime, the more time I can spend in my air conditioned house, the better!