November 13, Hugo.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Hats off.
November 13, Hugo.
Here are the Kelly Miller Circus performers, on and off the show.
They are shown in the order I photographed them.
Here are the Kelly Miller Circus performers, on and off the show.
They are shown in the order I photographed them.
The glass half full.
November 12, Hugo.
Hah! I filled the Nissan for $17.
That's the thing about the economy going down the drain, the good ole days of cheap gas are back. (And I'm in immediate danger of being truly Americanized, seeing the glass half full.)
Hah! I filled the Nissan for $17.
That's the thing about the economy going down the drain, the good ole days of cheap gas are back. (And I'm in immediate danger of being truly Americanized, seeing the glass half full.)
Surprise.
November 12, Hugo.
More driving, to Dallas to the Peruvian consulate to have the kids recognized as Peruvians (they now have three nationalities, American, French and Peruvian,) then to don Sandro's house to pick up my little old Nissan and stuff from storage. Surprise: the trailer we have been trying to sell suffered heavy water damage, the roof is torn. It was in tip top shape when we last saw it so we have no idea what happened.
No wonder people who called and went to see it never called back.
More driving, to Dallas to the Peruvian consulate to have the kids recognized as Peruvians (they now have three nationalities, American, French and Peruvian,) then to don Sandro's house to pick up my little old Nissan and stuff from storage. Surprise: the trailer we have been trying to sell suffered heavy water damage, the roof is torn. It was in tip top shape when we last saw it so we have no idea what happened.
No wonder people who called and went to see it never called back.
Back to Hugo.
November 11, Hugo.
The kids hardly slept in the seven hours it took us to drive from Abilene, the last stretch of the 2008 Kelly Miller migration.
Everybody made it safe.
The kids hardly slept in the seven hours it took us to drive from Abilene, the last stretch of the 2008 Kelly Miller migration.
Everybody made it safe.
A trailer with a view.
November 11, Hugo, Oklahoma (328 miles, Kelly Miller Circus winter quarters.)
Dylan's day.
November 10, Abilene.
Even though his third birthday is not until Friday we threw my Dylan a birthday party in the tent today, as I so wanted a circus party for him, my circus baby.
There was Bar-B-Que from the sponsor, and Dylan's food galore. Everything Dylan loves to eat, black olives, baby carrots, cherry tomatoes, raspberries, strawberries and green grapes, and of course a cake, no, two cakes, Thomas the Train and Spiderman, because they were out of Winnie the Pooh, and lots of balloons, and surprise bags for the other kids, and lots of presents for my Dylan who ran around eating olives and raspberries as if there were no tomorrow, and for him there isn't, his face a study in red stains.
The last two shows of the season followed, and John spoke at the end of the second show to thank the Rosales family and the Kenyans, who won't be here next year, and his son Johnnie, along whom he has worked for the first time this year.
It was a rush of a last day and I was too exhausted to register anything but relief the season was over and regrets over the things I didn't get to do, so many loose ends, so many images that will have to be flashes of memories, so many words unspoken and unwritten.
North of Abilene, somewhere near my Dad.
November 9, Abilene.
Last date of the season, last lot and a nice one but for the sand spurs endemic in this part of the country. As always time accelerates when the end is near and summer and the East Coast seem like yesterday.
When I was growing up my father would often travel to the U.S. for work and sometimes swing by New York City; there he liked to stop at the Lone Star Café where, he would half-mockingly declaim back home in his heavily-accented English, you found "the best steak north of Abilene."
I can't think of Abilene without thinking of him.
The last of the Black Angels.
November 8, Big Spring.
Two members of the Black Angels left us after Ardmore. Fridman has been pitching in and performing with them.
He's not bad, my Brown Angel.
Miracle center.
November 8, Big Spring.
On a billboard facing the highway where we are parked:
"Miracle Revival Center
Preacher Greg Taylor
May the Lord Keep you Safe on Your Journey."
The sign was all but faded, the drawing of Christ was disapearing and the safe-keeping wish hard to read - if anything, one struggling to read it from the highway might get into an accident.
On a billboard facing the highway where we are parked:
"Miracle Revival Center
Preacher Greg Taylor
May the Lord Keep you Safe on Your Journey."
The sign was all but faded, the drawing of Christ was disapearing and the safe-keeping wish hard to read - if anything, one struggling to read it from the highway might get into an accident.
Smells like Texas.
November 8, Big Spring.
We're parked in the middle of nowhere outside of town next to a refinery with a front view of the freeway - tres Texas.
Down side is, there is a bad chemical smell in the air and it can't be good for the either children or adults, and the constant roar of trucks speeding by doesn't help. The park was a reprieve yesterday, there was even a whoop right by the trailers, but this has got to be the worse place we've been all year.
Friday, November 07, 2008
Myrna.
November 7, Midland.
Myrna doesn't want to get interviewed anymore. I had begun videotaping her back in September then never had time to follow up and now she's mad, my mistake, but then there are the kids and Fridman who always have something important to do and time goes by and it's the end of the season.
I'll try again next year and if she still refuses it will be a rich piece of oral history that is lost and forgotten.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
This America.
November 6, Odessa.
Both the city before and after Lubbock got canceled so we had a vacation of four days without moving. How strong are our habits, it felt good to clear the trailer for the trip and finally get moving.
Just like this country, which will soon be moving ahead again thanks to Obama.
The international euphoria over his victory is hard to understate, people are passionate, I get emails from friends from around the world and they are thrilled, there is relief and a renewed hope for the future, there has never been a better time to be here in the United States and I am proud of America - this America, the generous, the boundless, the energetic, the proudly diverse, optimistic America I fell in love with as a teenager.
It feels as if we are finally getting out of a long, dark tunnel, and the light is almost blinding but so warm.
Both the city before and after Lubbock got canceled so we had a vacation of four days without moving. How strong are our habits, it felt good to clear the trailer for the trip and finally get moving.
Just like this country, which will soon be moving ahead again thanks to Obama.
The international euphoria over his victory is hard to understate, people are passionate, I get emails from friends from around the world and they are thrilled, there is relief and a renewed hope for the future, there has never been a better time to be here in the United States and I am proud of America - this America, the generous, the boundless, the energetic, the proudly diverse, optimistic America I fell in love with as a teenager.
It feels as if we are finally getting out of a long, dark tunnel, and the light is almost blinding but so warm.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
President Barack Hussein Obama.
November 4, Lubbock.
He won!
They're all deep into sleep over there in France but I know my friends and family are with me in rejoicing, they are with me in hardly believing what has just happened, the significance and scope of this victory, in a country that once, not so long ago, deemed the marriage of Barack Obama's parents illegal.
May Obama do as much good to this country, and the world, as we the people, in the United States, in France, in Morocco, in Peru and in Mexico, in villages in Africa and in sprawling cities in Asia, all hope he can.
He won!
They're all deep into sleep over there in France but I know my friends and family are with me in rejoicing, they are with me in hardly believing what has just happened, the significance and scope of this victory, in a country that once, not so long ago, deemed the marriage of Barack Obama's parents illegal.
May Obama do as much good to this country, and the world, as we the people, in the United States, in France, in Morocco, in Peru and in Mexico, in villages in Africa and in sprawling cities in Asia, all hope he can.
Holding my breath the world over.
November 4, Lubbock.
I'm glued to the internet and the radio is non-stop on since late afternoon and in this I'm only just like the world over.
An email from a friend I grew up with, who is married to a Moroccan: "Mohamed is not moving from the TV, like all Arabs (even though he's Berber, not Arab) he hates Bush; I hope Americans will vote well, it will help the country's image around the world so much."
Not only is this election historic for Americans, it is historic for the whole world. Tonight we're all American, as the French newspaper Le Monde's famous headline said on 9/11.
The polls are about to close on the West Coast and as Robert Spiegel from NPR just said, Barack Obama is having quite a strong night.
The world is holding its breath.
I'm glued to the internet and the radio is non-stop on since late afternoon and in this I'm only just like the world over.
An email from a friend I grew up with, who is married to a Moroccan: "Mohamed is not moving from the TV, like all Arabs (even though he's Berber, not Arab) he hates Bush; I hope Americans will vote well, it will help the country's image around the world so much."
Not only is this election historic for Americans, it is historic for the whole world. Tonight we're all American, as the French newspaper Le Monde's famous headline said on 9/11.
The polls are about to close on the West Coast and as Robert Spiegel from NPR just said, Barack Obama is having quite a strong night.
The world is holding its breath.
Better days.
November 4, Lubbock.
Lubbock is a strange town, a ghost town with too wide streets reverberating the emptiness, and the cobblestones out of place in what looks like the quintessential un-urban American landscape.
Abandoned building in downtown Lubbock.
Monday, November 03, 2008
Fridman.
November 3, Lubbock.
Fridman fell during his rolla bola act and came home laughing his head off while holding his ribs. It was in the second show tonight that his pedestal failed as he was coming down at the end of the act, and he tumbled all the way to the floor. Earlier he had rammed his knee into one of the tent's stakes during our photo session.
He's young enough that he'll recover quickly but not young enough that the injuries won't be felt later on.
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Early call.
November 2, Lubbock.
Daylight savings time ended last night and the circus was treated to an early wake-up call.
Castro got the hour confused, woke up at 4:30 AM instead of the call time of 5:30 and proceeded to rouse up everybody but us when he started all the trucks, his morning task. When we poked our head out of the trailer at 5:35 we were the only one left except for John Moss.
Daylight savings time ended last night and the circus was treated to an early wake-up call.
Castro got the hour confused, woke up at 4:30 AM instead of the call time of 5:30 and proceeded to rouse up everybody but us when he started all the trucks, his morning task. When we poked our head out of the trailer at 5:35 we were the only one left except for John Moss.
Circus folks.
November 1, Amarillo.
It's nine o'clock, the generator came on, and John Moss just came knocking saying that "we underestimated Larry," the driver of one of the trucks that broke down. Apparently before they had his truck towed he pulled Fridman's props out of it and into the shop truck that made it to the lot OK.
Never underestimate circus folks.
I forgot about Larry. He appeared the way circus people do, out of nowhere, a month ago, and has been driving and doing odd jobs at the circus since. He was an animal trainer who got mauled badly by one of his tigers. I don't know much more about him, should find out before it's too late, in only a few more days.
It's nine o'clock, the generator came on, and John Moss just came knocking saying that "we underestimated Larry," the driver of one of the trucks that broke down. Apparently before they had his truck towed he pulled Fridman's props out of it and into the shop truck that made it to the lot OK.
Never underestimate circus folks.
I forgot about Larry. He appeared the way circus people do, out of nowhere, a month ago, and has been driving and doing odd jobs at the circus since. He was an animal trainer who got mauled badly by one of his tigers. I don't know much more about him, should find out before it's too late, in only a few more days.
Hazardous circus conditions.
October 31, Amarillo.
Two small trucks broke down somewhere on highway 183 in Oklahoma, more than 200 miles away from here, and nobody thought to open them before having them towed to a shop where they'll remain until who knows when. Julio Rosales' truck also broke down just as it had during the first jump on Wednesday, and he's back there with it still. The result is that Fridman cannot do his acts because all his props are in one of the circus trucks, and the Rosales can't do their wheel of destiny act either because their props are in the other.
That's why there is a part of the program that says everything in this show is subject to change without notice due to the hazardous nature of circus performing.
Make that circus life.
Two small trucks broke down somewhere on highway 183 in Oklahoma, more than 200 miles away from here, and nobody thought to open them before having them towed to a shop where they'll remain until who knows when. Julio Rosales' truck also broke down just as it had during the first jump on Wednesday, and he's back there with it still. The result is that Fridman cannot do his acts because all his props are in one of the circus trucks, and the Rosales can't do their wheel of destiny act either because their props are in the other.
That's why there is a part of the program that says everything in this show is subject to change without notice due to the hazardous nature of circus performing.
Make that circus life.
Down the Western lane.
October 31, Amarillo.
Smells like Circus Chimera, feels like Circus Chimera, but hopefully business here won't be like Circus Chimera's. Adios beautiful Kelly Miller-style lots, well-tended city parks and the more than occasional playground, here come the scrawny, dusty, spiky grass lots so trademark of Chimera they should have copyrighted their use. And we've gone from sub-freezing temperatures to near-A.C. weather in two days. No wonder everybody's got a cold. Again des enfants sages comme des images all along the trip, even though they woke up at nine this time. True traveling circus kids they are.
Another big jump, and the most boring, longest highway in the world, highway 287 in the Texas panhandle, and Texas means radio desert (between religious radio and country radio the choice is yours) and that in turn means I got to brush up on my Doors (gave up on my Bob Dylan's, cassette's older than me, too many road trips and showing it) and take a trip down memory lane with pretty boy Lloyd Cole and his Commotions, the perfect idol for the neurotic post-adolescent circa 1986.
When you're strange...
Smells like Circus Chimera, feels like Circus Chimera, but hopefully business here won't be like Circus Chimera's. Adios beautiful Kelly Miller-style lots, well-tended city parks and the more than occasional playground, here come the scrawny, dusty, spiky grass lots so trademark of Chimera they should have copyrighted their use. And we've gone from sub-freezing temperatures to near-A.C. weather in two days. No wonder everybody's got a cold. Again des enfants sages comme des images all along the trip, even though they woke up at nine this time. True traveling circus kids they are.
Another big jump, and the most boring, longest highway in the world, highway 287 in the Texas panhandle, and Texas means radio desert (between religious radio and country radio the choice is yours) and that in turn means I got to brush up on my Doors (gave up on my Bob Dylan's, cassette's older than me, too many road trips and showing it) and take a trip down memory lane with pretty boy Lloyd Cole and his Commotions, the perfect idol for the neurotic post-adolescent circa 1986.
When you're strange...
The Big Jump and a big party.
October 29, Ardmore.
The Big Jump, miles of country roads and highway heading straight south back into the warmth and almost home. We made it before 2 PM, no fuss and no hum, the way it seldom is traveling with small children. They slept til Oklahoma City, 220 miles strong, and were quiet as shadows the rest of the way without even having left their seat once. Sara wasn't so lucky and arrived a while after us, she had to stop repeatedly to accommodate a fussy Gigi.
For me it was a day stretched to the brim, no rest and all work, after the road came the much taunted Kelly Miller Circus Halloween Party, and going shopping for it after cooking a late lunch, getting the kids ready in lightning time and the headache that started in the morning when I drove on for hours without eating (no stopping til the kids wake up is the golden rule of kid-totting circus traveling) growing worse, and the fatigue setting in with a vengeance, the party went on in the trailer with Sheyla and her family who'd come up from Dallas but I crashed, I couldn't go on anymore.
Nicolas got second place in the Halloween kid costume contest and I take full credit for that as Fridman left me to my devices to go rehearse his Black Angels skit with Julio, Jeremy and Johnnie. I put him in a Goodwill-bought clown jumper, dug out his biggest shoes and asked Deya to paint red dots on his face. Dylan I dressed like Johnny Depp's Cry Baby with a black leather jacket, white shirt and red Converse shoes, slicked-back hair and an eyeliner tear on one of his cheeks.
I think they both looked drop-dead gorgeous, what else.
Colder.
October 27, Yates Center.
So cold, so windy and cold, the trapeze was canceled for the second show. The elephants suffered too for the lot was rocky and it hurts their feet; they moved as if in slow motion.
Junkyard next to the circus lot.
Cold.
October 26, Burlington.
It's so cold at night, the circus generator is on til morning. This is when a motor home is needed, so we don't have to take the children out into the cold to the truck.
Downtown building.
Bird bath.
October 23, Harveyville.
Two days here and I forgot to take a Trailer with a View picture, comatose from the cold or too busy visiting the pottery studio. It would have shown Sara's and Eddie and Vickie's trucks from the front.
Here are a few of the views from the village instead, before I went into Jepson Studio.
I spent all my Christmas allowance but I am richer.
Dead center.
October 23, Harveyville.
It was cold, the kids were sleeping, it was a perfect time to go for a walk. The place is hardly a hamlet, not big enough to have a stoplight or even an intersection, but it is big enough to have a pottery studio with the whole world in its shapes and glazes, the desert's hues, the ocean's blue, the starless night's infinite black, the sand dunes and the waves, they're all in the stoneware that owner Barry Jepson, with Linda, Julie and Robin make here in what at first sight appeared to be the forsaken end of the road.
"You're in the center of the United States here," said Linda, who is from Florida and followed her husband here from Seattle. They bought a three-bedroom ranch house and 13 acres for just over $40,000 two years ago, which could be another reason why the end of the road in Kansas is more attractive than it first seems.
And just down highway 31, Burlingame, a little bigger than Harveyville, just like so many other downtrodden corners of the country is a study in what America has left behind, with its cobblestone main street, handwritten shop signs, the haphazard quality of the buildings and stores, anything but pretty, flat tones, simple trades, a tire shop, a meat market, the Bug Guys and the Sante Fe Café, all neon lit and nowhere to go, haphazard, unadorned, authentic, but also anachronistic, as if someone had stopped the clock in the fifties and thrown away the key, before the chain stores, gentrification and manufactured tastes made the country look tiredly cute and the same from one end to the other.
But then the town is most probably dying, slowly oozing its population like rural communities the country over.
It was cold, the kids were sleeping, it was a perfect time to go for a walk. The place is hardly a hamlet, not big enough to have a stoplight or even an intersection, but it is big enough to have a pottery studio with the whole world in its shapes and glazes, the desert's hues, the ocean's blue, the starless night's infinite black, the sand dunes and the waves, they're all in the stoneware that owner Barry Jepson, with Linda, Julie and Robin make here in what at first sight appeared to be the forsaken end of the road.
"You're in the center of the United States here," said Linda, who is from Florida and followed her husband here from Seattle. They bought a three-bedroom ranch house and 13 acres for just over $40,000 two years ago, which could be another reason why the end of the road in Kansas is more attractive than it first seems.
And just down highway 31, Burlingame, a little bigger than Harveyville, just like so many other downtrodden corners of the country is a study in what America has left behind, with its cobblestone main street, handwritten shop signs, the haphazard quality of the buildings and stores, anything but pretty, flat tones, simple trades, a tire shop, a meat market, the Bug Guys and the Sante Fe Café, all neon lit and nowhere to go, haphazard, unadorned, authentic, but also anachronistic, as if someone had stopped the clock in the fifties and thrown away the key, before the chain stores, gentrification and manufactured tastes made the country look tiredly cute and the same from one end to the other.
But then the town is most probably dying, slowly oozing its population like rural communities the country over.
News junkie.
October 23, Harveyville.
I'm craving my NPR news fix today.
Every time I turned on the radio they were asking me for money.
I'm craving my NPR news fix today.
Every time I turned on the radio they were asking me for money.
Jump.
October 23, Harveyville, Kansas (111 miles, a baseball field.)
After a stop on the parking lot of the Gardner Walmart (everybody went shopping,) we jumped to Friday's location as the fairgrounds in Gardner were not an option with the rain we've had. We're all stuck here too but at least we'll have something to eat. No shows today then, and it's just as well as it's barely in the 40s, an unexpected day off to be savored intimately.
Those are difficult days for Jim, the manager, every day bringing a new challenge, tomorrow yet more uncertain than usual. Nothing is ever assured in the circus, improvisation and creativity are always a must, and endurance and a can-do attitude required skills, but the muddy days are even harder.
There are two weeks left before the end of the season.
After a stop on the parking lot of the Gardner Walmart (everybody went shopping,) we jumped to Friday's location as the fairgrounds in Gardner were not an option with the rain we've had. We're all stuck here too but at least we'll have something to eat. No shows today then, and it's just as well as it's barely in the 40s, an unexpected day off to be savored intimately.
Those are difficult days for Jim, the manager, every day bringing a new challenge, tomorrow yet more uncertain than usual. Nothing is ever assured in the circus, improvisation and creativity are always a must, and endurance and a can-do attitude required skills, but the muddy days are even harder.
There are two weeks left before the end of the season.
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