The circus is a place where dreams and reality intersect, where the limits of human ability and perception are tested and surpassed. It is a place of escape from the everyday (to “run away and join the circus”), a place of spectacle & entertainment, and a proving ground for the human imagination. In this article, we’ll explore some of the primordial archetypal characters from the circus and carnival tradition, and connect them with pastiche of historical context and symbolic meaning.
Read full length article FREE at CircusCharacters.org.
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ASSOCIATED CONTENT @TMBCHR (Auto-Generated)
- CIRCUS CHARACTERS, History, Archetypes & Symbolism
- Free Circus History Lecture @ Baltimore Museum of Art, Tuesday March 31
- Tim Boucher (Big Elk) Web Radio Interview @ 7pm EST
- Saltimbanques
- Human Search Requests: Circus Stuff
23 Comments
This took forever to write!
Some other links for later:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mime
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marionettes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punch_and_judy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joust
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_fair
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaudeville
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burlesque
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_films
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicine_show
Also want to come back and connect the circus/street-performing traditions to modern media, advertising, propaganda, etc. Links above are a bridge to that…
Well, I just want to say that wheras I might disagree with you on some other things, this serries is awesome. I think t is your best work. I think you are uncovering buried treasure.
Finally, another epic post.
But with epic posts, I always wonder how the data could be better presented. I like how you stack all of the images to make your point; a deceptively simple, but rarely used technique.
What would be great, would be if your post was presented in outline form, where mousing over links would open things up into more detail. Like, the images could all be shrunk down, so that when they were moused over, they would enlarge.
The problem with the length, is that one loses focus, and attention quickly because there is so much to digest.
http://www.universoulcircus.com/show.htm
If this circus ever comes to town go see it. I haven’t been yet but everybody at work raves about it.
I agree with Ted, good one.
I have to admit/pat myself on the back that this subject matter is extraordinarily difficult to piece together - at least via the internet. I’m not sure about how good the academic scholarship on the subject is, but things on the internet about this realm are surprisingly few and far between, and I haven’t seen anybody else tieing all these elements together into a sweeping picture. Every time I write one of these things, I always imagine how it could have been better, but for the time being I’m hoping it will at least create a bridge for other people to do scholarship and research (it’s all public domain, so if you can put it together better than me, I encourage you to do so) - but more importantly to go out and try some of these things (circus arts) out, because they are fun and worthwhile.
One of my other story arcs for this series has to do with Gypsies, but that’s a topic which is even MORE difficult to find good scholarship on, because it’s always been so sensationalized. Good solid histories tend not to exist for the people on the lowest strata of society, except maybe within the realm of folk tales and songs, etc.
But a possible direct connection might be uncovered between Gypsies, who some say hail from India originally, and the influx of Hindu-ish and yoga-esque themes and symbolism by way of circus arts and itinerant performing, etc into the West. I would absolutely LOVE to see some good research on this, but I expect that it’s the kind of thing I would probably have to go and do first hand in the field myself to find out the best information on.
Will continue working on these lines of research and I encourage people who find this series, as well as the accompanying Carnival Culture series to email me with additional links, info and interest.
Also, I am actively interested in compiling all these strands of research and writing into something that could eventually take on a saleable book-length mass market format. If you or anyone you know is an editor, literary agent or connected to a publisher who would have an interest in such a venture, please connect me to them as I think we could make a really substantial piece out of all this.
Tim,
Writing a book is hard isn’t it? Seriously. I have tried a couple times. I mean, pretty serious efforts at it. Everything I have read from other authors, when they admit it, is that its excruciatingly painful. Like giving birth to a baby, running a marathon, being a boxer or somthing.
But I just want to say, I think you can do it and if I were to see this stuff in a book, even if it was a hundred dollars, I would buy it. I also think that there is some metaphysical dynamic at work here, that you are chanelling creative forces greater than yourself. Your voice is even different than your more off the cuff type posts.
People are in need of a cultural continuity in the modern world. You are dong really important work here and sharing it for free. I just hope you write this book. Let you be the one that does this.
Both of you keep at it all your lives. My Mom got a whole new life at the age of 60. She finally self published a small book a few years ago and she has had a cable TV show for almost 10 years. She kept writing and accumulating information, music, pictures etc. because she knew something big would happen and it did.
It is. It’s high quality stuff and I have very good taste.
Awww. Big hugs for Ted and Tim.
Yeah, I believe you Julia. I think I have good taste too. My tatse in books is pretty fricken high. I have bought a lot of books that went on to be best sellers after I bought a copy. Like Tim Ferris’s book.
I actually just sold a bunch of books to a used book store and they bought every single one and said they were really good.
I am going to tell that story to my Mom. She is 60 and I think she could be a writer too.
http://www.charlierose.com/shows/1995/...06/2/an-interview-with-isabel-fonseca
Her interview starts around 37:00. I remember reading her piece (book excerpt?) in The New Yorker but that site doesn’t give you whole articles. Something I read somewhere lead me to believe that comparing Rom words and words from Indian languages would be fruitful.
It’s weird, because it’s almost not better knowing. It’s really better a mystery.
I have to admit to feeling that same way and to being sort of embarrassed or awkward feeling like that somehow to begin with, like I don’t deserve it. The word, I think, is gratitude. All the other stuff has been one-shots, jokes almost delivered between acts to keep the audience involved while people are frantically changing costumes backstage…
Oh, and tonight I saw some weird underwater circus advertisement at the bar which went point by point through this article. Zeitgeist.
Circles:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/HockeyRink-Zones.png
http://www.youth-basketball-tips.com/images/courtdiagram.jpg
Portions of circles found within squares known as diamonds:
http://www.topendsports.com/sport/baseball/images/baseball-diamond.gif
Some circleness with linearity:
http://www.asksoccer.com/soccer-field-layout.jpg
And complete linearity
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/AmFBfield.svg
The jury’s verdict?
http://media.funlol.com/content/img/cat-going-crazy.jpg
http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w125/Gibson-Herrell/circus065.jpg
http://www.calvin.edu/map/pe/images/fieldhouse1466_600px.jpg
Tim,
I second the thought that are in touch with something “greater” - lots of pings/memes floating around. You’re bring it all together (you have an earlier post to that effect - human search agent I think? You said something to the effect that there was a lot of data out there but that you still needed people to make sense of it.
Also, the circle/circus ringmaster made me think of this:
“We are no other than a moving row
Of Magic shadow-shapes that come and go
Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern hold
In Midnight by the Master of the show.”
Omar Khayyám
The Rubáiyát
And talk of the sensorium took me to a CD-Rom novelization called The Third Force set in a future where one’s senses can be altered by use of a machine (used to suppress political objectors). Not the best written book, but thought-provoking ideas.
http://www.amazon.com/Third-Force-Nove...s=books&qid=1209135781&sr=8-4
I’ve heard a few people says that basketball courts and baseball diamonds are inspired by elements of masonic rituals. They may be quoting each other and I haven’t studied either subject enough to know btu they sounded like they knew what they were talking about.
But what are Masonic rituals based on, if that were the case?
That’s what I’d really like to know too! The thing I’ve heard that sounded realistic was they they are based on ancient Egyptian rituals that are mostly based on Sun worship and/or other astrological phenomena.
Here’s this Julia:
“Even basketball one of our most popular national pastimes, was invented by a Mason, James Naismith.” (link)
So then they are just based on observation of natural phenomenon, encoded into human culture symbol sets and re-enacted in ritual to unify oneself and one’s actions with the universe?
Odd:
http://dr-bob.securesites.com/babble/social/20020430/msgs/23306.html
Yeah, what you said. It’s the encoding thing I really want to understand. I see it every day and sometimes I read something that puts it all together for me but I want to know how the encoding works. Who wrote the program and what was their motivation? Humans make movies but who makes the movies in your head? They are just as true as a movie in a theater.
We live in and align ourselves with the physical universe and but what is the deciding mechanism? What/who decided that days/months/Sirius etc. would be the clock and why? I really want to know. Why sacrifice a virgin for the harvest instead of going on a trek or a pilgrimage? Why paint walls instead of doing tattoos?
Fasting vs. feasting. It sounds stupid but where are the religions that go on an Atkins type of diet? Or eat fives times daily like diabetics? Who wrote that program and for what purpose? How did they do that? I’m serious. This stuff really bugs me. I come against this brick wall very often and I can’t break through.
Aesthetic selection and intuition. I don’t think the answer is more complex than that or needs to be.
Nice to see you’re back in good form again. I remember you seemed to once spit these long’uns out faster than I could keep up.
Never before saw the connectedness of the circus with tarot. Very cool! Even cooler to have an actual tarot circus!
Nice link and citation of the White rider above - dont they usually carry a large flag, and ride around around the circle … reminds me of The Sun card with the child, horse, flag. I know the fortune-teller would be the High Priestess!
Nice idea too for an integrated book on all you’ve done. Be nice if you could collage all the neato imagery you’ve used into your own - what is it? 25% modified = legal reuse?
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