My first trip to the circus was to attend the Ringling Brothers/Barnum & Bailey extravaganza, at the Glens Falls Civic Center. I don’t recall much from the show, except the smelly animals and an electric gun that you had to rev up with a trigger to make sparks appear at the end. What I do remember is dinner after the show. We stopped at a restaurant that had tiny jukeboxes at every booth. I don’t know if it was my parents or my brother and I who selected ‘Disco Duck’, but that’s what we played at our table. Quack, quack, waddle, waddle…

The waitress told us to feel free to help ourselves to the salad bar whenever we were ready. We scooted out of the booth, my brother and I, and hurried off to the salad bar… wait, that can’t be right… we wouldn’t have been tall enough to get the salad ourselves. So one of my parents must have gone up to get our plates.

At that time, my favorite food in the world was the marinated garbanzo bean concoction at Pepe’s Restaurant. They were drenched in a homemade salad dressing, tangy and spiced with onions and black olives, and no other restaurant ever quite got it right. Still, any garbanzos were better than no garbanzos, and I asked for my parents to get some for me.

The waitress stopped when she heard me talking. “I’ve never heard someone so young call them by their real name,” she told my parents with an incredulous open-mouthed smile. She was impressed.

I didn’t know what else I was supposed to call them. Chick peas? How common.

Chapter 1: A Circus is Born

Outside the forum, a crowd was gathering. It was lunch time, and businessmen in suits stood in small groups waiting for them to arrive. Hordes of children squealed with anticipatory delight, running around in small circles and tugging on their parents’ coats. They heard them before they saw them - two loud trumpet-like calls cutting through the murmuring mass, a moment of silence, then the wide-eyed wonderment and excited chatter of the children again.

They were led out into the middle of the street, lumbering behind their trainers and parting the throngs effortlessly. Their wrinkled grayish-brown skin was dotted with hair. Everyone was always surprised by that. Plain, unadorned, and out-of-costume, the elephants were still magnificent. Their immensity was more amazing when viewed up close. Picture a wall of rough flesh rising before you, a moving mound of muscles, powerful hindquarters, and the most soul-searching pair of eyes found in the animal kingdom. You know they are seeing into you. You know they will remember.

I cannot bring myself to watch them eat. It’s what I came out for, it’s what everyone came out for, but now that I’ve seen them I can’t do it. I don’t like being watched when I’m eating, and I’m certain they feel the same. A lifetime of being watched becomes its own circus. You end up wanting to rip your own skin off and throw it at the surrounding circle, even though you know that the circle moves around you, growing and contracting but always out of reach, out of touch. It is indeed a circus, but it’s all you’ve ever known, and after being the center of attention for so long you come to realize: there’s no other way.

At the college where I teach I’m surrounded by circus people. We aren’t tightrope walkers or acrobats. We don’t breathe fire or swallow swords. We’re gypsies, moving wherever there’s work to be found. Our scrapbooks and photo albums bear witness to our vagabond lives: college years, grad-school years, instructor-mill years, first-job years. In between each stage is a picture of old friends helping to fill a truck with boxes and furniture. We pitch our tents, and that place becomes home for a while. We make families from colleagues and students, lovers and neighbors. And when that place is no longer working, we don’t just make do. We move on to the place that’s next. No place is home. Every place is home. Home is our stuff. As much as I love the Cumberland Valley twilight, I probably won’t live there forever, and this doesn’t really scare me. That’s how I know I’m circus people.

- The Circus in Winter, Cathy Day

Let them call you freak,
In the havoc you wreak,
In the noses you tweak,
In the stories you leak,
Not for the faint or weak,
Not for the plain or bleak,
You’re much too chic
For the pussy or the geek,
For the mindless or the meek,
Few dare to peek,
A Piccadilly boutique,
A scarf so fucking sleek,
And a parrot’s regal beak.
You were always unique…

THE CIRCUS PROJECT

…The Big Top Opens This Month…

Going to see the elephant meant you were going over the wall, into the cave, across the mountain, into the dark night beyond the firelight’s reach. When you returned - if you returned - you said, “I’ve been to see the elephant.” Some things once seen cannot be said, and so we say we’ve seen the elephant instead.

– The Circus in Winter, Cathy Day

The Lenten Rose has been blooming for a few weeks now - it took this plant three years before it sent up its first set of blooms, and I had almost given up on it. One thing I learned was that cutting off the dead and tattered evergreen leaves after a winter seemed to inspire the plant into sending up new growth. I had been leaving them alone, and not only did they look bad, they seemed to zap all the energy from the plant.

The traditional bleeding heart, a plant that evokes happy childhood memories.

Finally, the Kwanzan cherry bloomed for the first time this year. Andy had a spectacular specimen at his old house, and I’m hoping this one will follow in its path. It seems to be off to a decent start.

Above is a magnolia blossom, taken at Troy’s Landscape Supply - one of my favorite nurseries. It ranks right up there with Faddegon’s as far as quality and selection go. It also focuses more on trees and shrubs, which is where my interests have been heading.

This is a grove of dogwoods - the traditional American dogwood, which has been falling victim to the dreaded Anthracnose disease. I’ve seen a few of these pink and white forms in the neighborhood, and this is the magical time of year when the “blooms” (actually sepals) hover on the leafless branches like droves of butterflies. Sadly, each year they look less and less healthy, and as much as I admire these trees, I’ve only planted the Chinese dogwoods as they are said to be much less susceptible.

I actually don’t know the name of these tree blossoms, but they were the brightest ones in the nursery, and they looked particularly striking against the blue sky.

This Friday, May 2, 2008 I’ll be hosting another art exhibition at the Romaine Brooks Gallery on 332 Hudson Ave. (right off Lark Street). Stop by and see works by John Frederick, from 5-9 PM.

We’re also accepting submissions for works to be featured in The Pride Show, to run for the month of June 2008. If you’d like to submit something, please e-mail me at rbg@cdglcc.org by May 20, 2008. A $20 entry fee covers three pieces.

It happens every two years or so - another Madonna studio album is released. Sometimes, they’re epic (Like A Prayer, Ray of Light), sometimes they’re coasters (Bedtime Stories, Music), and sometimes they’re in-between (True Blue, Erotica) - but they’ve never been boring. Her 11th, Hard Candy, dropped yesterday, and falls into one of the better categories, sexily straddling pop and hip-hop with a sultry thrust of dance and disco.

Hard Candy is the final album she owes Warner Brothers after 25 years under contract to them. It’s a deliciously sweet farewell, and she does them, and herself, proud. From here on out she heads over to Live Nation and their touring/records/tie-ins umbrella. This album is a brilliant ending to what is probably only another beginning for a remarkable artist. Head on over to the Edge websites to read my full review of the album.

There is no more glorious sight of Spring than the fiddleheads of ferns unfurling in the warmth and light of the sun.

They sometimes look as though they were talking to each other…

… sharing some secret of Spring - a verdant tete a tete.