After my night at the circus, I’ve thought some more about circus acts, the discipline it takes to get good enough to end up in a circus somewhere, and the countries from which performers hail. How people end up in a circus interests me. I can stand on my head. That’s about it. I’ve never been able to touch my toes and still think a split is just something you make with a banana. The other kind is out of the question.
Here’s a YouTube video of vintage circus acts. The aerial acts are similar to what we see today, but the acts with the strong man may not translate to today’s audiences. David Letterman’s stupid human tricks, maybe. Poor guy. What a heck of a way to make a living.
The second YouTube video is of a Olga and Pavel Polistovskie, two circus performers whose jobs seem a bit more fun than a cannon ball in the stomach.