I am a spinning plates kind of girl.
Have you seen? Wired skewers defying all logic gyrating, balancing, thick rimmed plates. Seventeen of them. The Spinner, a thirteenth century muse. His smile and animated act is the show. He can balance two chopsticks with three eggs on his nose. The standing room cheered. Spinning plates really are funny when there is someone running too and from. I can watch spinning plates all day.
Other acts.
Autumn the rope climber, is that what it's called? doubtful. Autumn's spandex and lace bodice cannot contain her father’s frame. A lumberjack. Her father carried his two daughters, one on each shoulder until they both went to the navy. They were rope climbing sailors, with a lumberjack's spine. Autumn drives up the rope, matching the ropes strength. She swings leg and rope into a half mans' hitch which allows her to lie parallel to the rope, 15 feet above her audience. Her feet work independently, able to withstand as they pull her body and hold herself in place. She stops shaking, she's part of the rope, the audience eases and ahhs. Sliding one leg down, wrapped once around her ankle, lanyard tie, she releases the half man and twirls down the rope, just 5 feet above the ground. It's an eight minute act. More knots and spins, muscle fatigue. She thinks the ground a fire pit but when finally the ground has cooled she returns. Lipstick smeared and her father clapping in the corner, there is no blue ox. Before the final act, a walking ladder with an assistant from an audience, a woman who can't toss a flaming baton to save the show, she's out of her mind uncoordinated, which is funny, but not like plates. The Maestro is 8 feet in the air with a plastic bag on his head walking on a balanced on two legged ladder, wishing she’t just toss the sticks because his foot is cramaping. She's responsible for the fire extinguisher too. A contortionist, who's mostly naked so no one's eyes left her as she split and spilt gold paint down her body letting it drip while she's in some sort of pretzel. The chair balancing handstand act from china with giant amazed smiles. Entertainment for the whole freakish family. Then 23 people from the audience went up to the stage to get the number 13 branded somewhere on their body, the thirteenth anniversary of the Body Manipulations Circus, including the girl. She asks me if I will do it. No. She gets two, no not one for me. Hey I'm telling the story here. This is where things got, well overwhelming, I smell flesh and hair. I had just finished half the coincidences story in the New York Times, so I really wasn't thinking about god or conspiracy. I was thinking about equations and the theory of everything. I was thinking about how much I like spinning plates, because they're just spinning plates and that's really funny. I was thinking about easy things when Paul the vaudeville host of the show entered the stage with 5 assistants all wearing latex gloves. Pam the acupuncturist who just got married to a married couple and lives in Bernal Heights, just shoved two three inch hooks through the muscle of his shoulder blades. The giant stage hand a Hawaiian with 2 inch plugs in his ears hefts the tattooed frame onto his shoulders. Paul stands while Pam climbs a ladder to attach his fresh hooks to two carabeeners attached to a bungee cordes and a trapeze swing. The flesh hangs. Enter Flesh hangers girlfriend, who bears such striking resemblance to Juliette Lewis, so much so I know when she says, hi baby, the hanging man’s smile gleams like a Colgate commercial. *ding* She grabs his hands and began to swing from them, gently. She’s trusted. The calculated movements, hanging from his waist, he holds her by her legs, by his legs, by his feet, they swing. Calmly. Morbid and beautiful, meanwhile he's trying not to puke from the pain. I watched clenched, I tried to avoid her tender throbbing arms, I tried to think about spinning plates. Just as long as I didn't see the flesh of his back hooked pulling up past his shoulders, oh there it is again. I remember the time Daffy Duck and Buggs Bunny were trying to out perform each other, all for crowd appeal. In the end Daffy eats a bunch of flammable stuff and swallows a lit match. Kabloom. The crowd roars, a standing ovation. Bugs for the first time clearly defeated tells the devilish duck, who's now a charred shadow ready for the afterlife. "Well Daffy I guess you win". Daffy mildly impressed with himself says, "Yeah, wouldn't you know it, but I can only do that trick once." Stick with spinning plates Daffy. or a pie in the face, I like that too.