October 14, New Bloomfield.
The Kelly Miller Circus Library is still on, I found out yesterday from a flyer backstage as I was taking pictures of Girard, and there is a large plastic box full of books already. There was an urgent call for volunteers to take the box in and out every day. Unfortunately there are only books in English and a big part of people here do not speak it, much less read it. Whether they would read were there books in Spanish is another question.
There is a ritual in the circus and it is a sacred one. The first thing people do when they get to the lot every morning is to take out their satellite TV dish. Each and every day, pointing this way and that, and sometimes for a very long time, they bend over their UFO-like metal god until they align it and get a signal, a practice bordering on insanity. This year at Kelly Miller the only ones without a dish - and hence without TV - are Sara, Vickie and Eddie, Myrna, Jim and us.
People don't read anymore, complained a yard sale lady in Chicago as she saw me browsing her books.
And yet.
I bought the books, and the Kelly Miller Circus library thrives, even with all those ugly dishes around.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
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1 comment:
You are so right. This is what I wrote in 1999 after visiting Carson and Barnes in Milford, MI.
Even though they're constantly on the move, Circus folk,
just like you and me, enjoy watching their TV sets. All
over the lot you'll find satellite dishes aimed to
catch favorite programs.
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