Big Tops Tottering a Tad: Ringling's BMX Rider Suffering Accident is Liakable on TV ... A Late Cole Roll, ho ho? ... Mister McFiddle Compares Big Apple Circus to Ringling-Barnum ... and MORE! ...

First draft reckless: Not to in any way disrespect the terrible fall suffered by BMX rider during a Ringling performance, may I constructively  wonder if the accident may inflate crowd sizes ahead for the following reasons: 

!. The guy, as interviewed in the hospital is quite appealing – the sort of a chap the mid-Americans who patronize circuses warm up to.   2.  In this instance, it was not the fault of Ringling prop hands or riggers (well, not that we yet know of)  as seems to have been the case with the falling chandelier last year.  3.  It was done in the act of genuine risk-taking, but in a modern extreme sport that plays well to the younger crowd.    I’m hoping the best for whomever the rider is.  I’m hoping for his full recovery, and that his courage and stamina may be a plus, in this instance, rather than recent PR setbacks for the Felds.

Now it gets STRANGE: Why has the show not released the BMX rider’s name?  Stephan Payne mum to the press.  I did some searching on the net, and could not find it. I could swear I saw him interviewed on TV.  A likable lad.

Onward to the views of 10-year-old Mister McFiddle, of Luray VA, I being, I think the kid’s great uncle, for twas who nicknamed him. He’s really Noah Gerrity, and he went with Lisa and his dad Brian to see the Ringling’s Circus xTreme in xxx.   My niece e-mailed a little later about our young patron, “I forgot to mention that Noah said he actually liked APPLE CIRCUS better in some ways, one being the tent!”  ... The kid is smart and able to think for himself.  He, Lisa and I took in a performance of  the Big Apple Circus show I think Noah was referring to, two seasons back, and although neither Lisa nor I were persuasively thrilled, we made a point not to rain our reservations on Little Noah, but to ask him to tell us what he liked.  He liked a lot.  He had also seen the vastly superior (in my opinion) Dance On! from BAC a few seasons before that.  So there!

Johnny Pugh, you are so slyly silent, or are you striving for a way back under your imposing big top?   Harry Kingston comments about the website promising that the show will be back in some form of action come June.  The phone number, when I dialed it, brought on Ma Bell’s dreary, “Please hang up and try dialing again.” Maybe when the World comes to an end, that is what we will hear, over and over again ...

Here are my Cole Roll-or-Dole speculations, partly influenced by having watched some of the excellent Lane Talburt video visits to the show a few years back, all of them easily findable on the beautiful website tease.  To repeat, SPECULATIONS:  Johnny really wants to go back out, but is hard pressed for money.  Johnny sold the property to raise money to for some kind of a Cole roll-out.  Why does the message play up animals when Johnny supposedly removed them from a theoretical wish list for the new season yet to possibly be?   Oh, yes, that leads to my conjuring up an image of fans close to Johnny working on him for some kind of a show, be it under his tent or out around home plate in ballparks.  Those sort of fans would scream Animal Acts with every chance.  OR, some aspiring big top boss is scrambling to save the season, unrealistically promising not just animals but "America's last real 3-ring circus under the big top" ... Pugh has been down to pennies before, so he’s no stranger to producing on the brink. 

END RINGERS: From Douglas McPherson’s Circus Mania blog, a great story about how many if not most of Brit elephants trainers did not use bu;l hooks for the most part; link to McPherson's blog, listed along the right bar ...The Smithsonian putting together a big circus splash, come 2017, with big top show .. Cirque du Soleil, apparently minus its founder,  about to open their 25 million dollar Broadway baby, Paramour along the Great White Way, this being their Number FOUR attempt to capture Gotham for more than a year or two ... Fine story about show in Sunday’s New York Times. Seems some big shots from the new ownership group, (Guy Laliberte’s name no where in the story), looking in on  previews and after demanding a replacement lead and cuts in running order, down to two hours.  Wonder if that means two bearable hours? Some noting show’s resemblance to IRIS, the CDS opus that failed to click in LA few years back. ... I’m thinking Smash Hit, I’m thinking Blundering Bomb  — Hmm, maybe I should ask Mister Fiddle to take a look and report back. ...

Apple Me a Convert:  Finally, I am now an Apple person!   Had to let go of my very small dumb phone,  something to do about  2G going to 4G.  So, wanting the lightest weight smart phone out there, (short of a flip job, which looks more like a medical alert device these days), I found it in Apple’s new SE, and what a beaut!   Although Steve Jobs seems to have been a son of a you know who many times over (I watched both movies on his miserable life, what a perfectly miserable genius he was)  My iPhone is, to quote C-Nets savvy review, a “small wonder.” And I am an iBeliever.  What a joy to have something that works so easily and perfectly ...  Breathtaking technology ...

SPECIAL AFTER SHOW!   This just in from Don Convington: Ringling's new show heralding "A Cosmic Family Adventure  -- Experience a Circus Light Years Beyond the Expected!"   ...  Let's see, no elephants,. so what to replace pachyderm power?  Monster trucks on a mission to save  -- what? Come back again, I might have a big iFinish.u let imaginations run wild with unexpected surprises and thrills at every turn. Climb aboard and take the helm as a circus star seeker for an unforgettable experience!

Experience a Circus
Light Years Beyond the Expected!

Prepare to blast off on a cosmic adventure unlike any other. Join the Circus Space Fleet on a heroic quest of good versus evil in a journey that will let imaginations run wild with unexpected surprises and thrills at every turn. Climb aboard and take the helm as a circus star seeker for an unforgettable experience!