Total eclipse of the sun.

March 28, Prescott Valley, Arizona.

Circus news, or rather Russians news: Igor and Olga gone, dismissed on Friday, the Russians, as we call them (Genia and his family,) also gone, but only temporarily, and Ekaterina turns 20, plus terrible lot in Prescott Valley with the weather turning cold and rainy up in the mountains. World news: immigration reforms being considered in Congress prompts protests in several US cities, political bloggers declared exempt of campaign contributions regulations, total eclipse of the sun (unrelated to the previous two.)

Igor and Olga left on Saturday afternoon by bus to Tucson and are probably going back to Russia. Igor had not been able to work following the accident on the I-10 in Tucson, apparently due to previous spine injuries coming back to haunt him. Another missed opportunity since I had just asked him to sit down for an interview on Friday... Do not report onto tomorrow what you can do today. I barely had the time to take a picture of him and Olga before they left. I'll miss them. I wanted to know more about Igor, his time in Afghanistan fighting in the Russian army, his career as a circus performer, his travels around the world. Olga was harder to get to know since she didn't speak either a word of English or Spanish. She was fond of Dylan, loved to take him in her arms and cuddle him, speaking to him in Russian all the time; it sounded like music to me. My Mom told me she heard that babies under ten month are able to not only understand but also say any sound from any language, an ability that they lose afterwards even if they are still able to learn languages to almost perfection. Keep the Russians coming please.

Intermission.
That little phrase in the Grande polonaise brillante Op.22 by Chopin is so beautiful it makes me stop what I'm doing every time (the interpretation is by Janusz Olejniczak and the Warsaw Philarmonic National Orchestra of Poland conducted by Tadeusz Strugala, from the soundtrack of The Pianist, a gift from Fridman.) I'm the same way with beautiful writing; it bring me to tears every time. There is a passage in Racine's play Bérénice (Acte I, Scene IV, Antiochus tells Bérénice of his love for her) that gets me every time- little would have I known when it bored me to no end back in high school. It's a little weird and completely nerdy but I can't help it. Some of Michel Foucault's writing does the same thing to me, especially a passage from the unedited preface to l'Histoire de la Folie so I forgive him his otherwise unnecessarily difficult prose.

Back to earth and on to the wonderful world of Circus Chimera. Or rather mud. The lot we're on is pure dirt, uneven and recently dug, which since it started raining is going to make for a great muddy mess.
We had a little party for Ekaterina, the Russian gymnast and contortionist, on Saturday night after the Russians left. The plan is to have a big one when they come back, in 10 days or so, but we didn't want that milestone to go by without at least some kind of a celebration. Again, on n'a pas tous les jours vingt ans, you don't turn twenty every day. We invited them over to the trailer for papas a la huancayina (a Peruvian dish, actually an appetizer but we make it a full meal) and cake. Igor and Olga were supposed to be there too but they decided to leave that afternoon and el tio Tito took them to the bus station. Without them or the Russians the party shrunk like a peau de chagrin (see Maupassant's novel, sorry but I can't think of a translation) but Ekaterina declared it was a great party anyway. She liked the teddy bear and pillow Fridman and I got her. The teddy bear is because every time she comes over to watch a movie she spends the night hugging mine. She decided to call hers Flema, the phonetic translation of the way the Chinese say Fridman's name. The pillow I knew she would like because we have the same taste and she's always marveling over the "decoration" in our trailer, even though decoration is a big word for two pieces of odds-and-ends material hung with clothes pins over the windows.
The circus feels empty without the Russians. They must be somewhere in Kentucky right now on their way to Pennsylvania for a show date they had contracted before signing up with this circus. There were teary goodbyes even though they should be back in a little more than a week. But then again you never know, that much I've learnt.

I've been out of touch with no radio for the past few days so I missed the demonstrations over the immigration bill now making its way through Congress. The Senate begins reviewing it today, if I'm not mistaken, and it includes the criminalization of illegal aliens. As if this country was not founded by immigrants. I recommend a movie called "A Day without Mexicans" on the subject. Adios fresh-picked veggies in the produce department of your grocery store!, adios half the population of California, Texas and Florida!, etc, etc. Actually the film should be called A Day without Latinos, as contrary to a commonly held belief in North America not all Latino immigrants are from Mexico and Mexico is not the only country south of the border. But then again the state of gringos' geographic ignorance is well-known so I don't need to add any more barb on the matter here.
[But I can't resist: one day early last year after the tsunami hit we were waiting in the DMV in Hugo, Oklahoma, and when Fridman told an old guy he was from Peru and not Mexico, the guy said, Oh yeah, that where they had that real bad thing over there in Asia now, heh? I just couldn't resist.]
This circus is a good example of the immigration reality of this country, and how it not only works fine but also makes for a wonderfully interesting crowd. This year there are people from literally all over the world working in the circus, from Mexico (most of the tent workers) to France (Bérengere), Russia (although the pool seems to be slightly dwindling from its all-time Russian Mafia highs,) to China and Peru, and it is owned by a US citizen and managed by another. Most of these people will probably end up staying here and will become part of the vitality of this country, although not all. All of them are here for a job nobody else could do, and work productively to enhance the richness of this country.
As far as I'm concerned this is the story of immigrants all over the world. In Europe they come from North Africa and Eastern Europe. In Australia from various countries in Eastern Asia. Unfortunately they are treated by a growing segment of the local population with the same mixture of scorn and dread everywhere. As Théodore Monod, a French biologist, writer and religious humanist liked to say, the human race, very young in evolutionary terms, is still learning how to be fully human. Part of wanting to have a child for me was also yearning to travel a little further on that road to a place of better understanding, love and respect for everything living.
There will be a total eclipse of the sun tomorrow. It will last three minutes and will be visible only from Africa. Where human life started. Total eclipse of the sun. Hope we learn.

Photo 1
Olga and Igor in front of their room in Circus Chimera's common trailer (Saturday March 24.)

Photo 2
Securing the tent.

[NB: All photos are from the day of the post unless otherwise noted, as above.]