March 29, 2006

STILL THE GREATEST:

Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus Play Madison Square Garden (EDWARD ROTHSTEIN, 3/29/06, NY Times)

It takes a peculiar sort of ambition to want to catch a 70-pound cannonball being propelled at your rib cage at 75 miles an hour. Or to teach three Doberman pinschers to dance on their hind legs. Or to lower yourself under the belly of a horse as it gallops around a ring. Or to ride a motorcycle at 50 miles an hour, circling inside a 16-foot-diameter sphere, four inches away from six other racing cyclists.

Maybe it even takes a peculiar sort of ambition to want to watch these things. But watching — which can be done now at Madison Square Garden at the 136th edition of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus — is also peculiarly satisfying and entertaining.


Bet Cirque du Soleil doesn't have the little flashlights on lanyards that you spin over your head.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 29, 2006 9:54 AM
Comments

Until they put the luxury skyboxes in, shortened the circus' stay and extended the hockey and basketball regular seasons, I always thought the timing of Ringling Bros.' appearnce in New York was some sort of malicious torture for the highest-priced ticket buyers for the Knicks and Rangers, who had to sit through their early round playoff games with the scent of elephant dung wafting through their nostrils in the lower level seats.

Posted by: John at March 29, 2006 10:22 AM

I'm scared of clowns. Therefore, I never go to the event that's full of them.

Posted by: Pete at March 29, 2006 4:01 PM

Reason #14098153 not to go to New York: I had to go there Monday for a deposition. Some colleagues and I ate lunch across the street from Madison Square Garden. I looked up from my sandwich and saw half a dozen elephants strolling down the street behind an NYPD squad car. I consoled myself with the realization that the elephants were gray rather than the more customary pink.

Posted by: Random Lawyer at March 29, 2006 10:14 PM

Pete:
May I assume that you therefore have never been to a Democrat convention?

Posted by: Michael at March 30, 2006 10:50 AM
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