Another two for one, but the point is better illustrated this way. Barely visible in the top picture, there is a trampoline below these three performers. With precise timing and direction, they create Escher-like contradictions in space, walking horizontally on vertical surfaces while seeming to float perpendicular to them while sitting in the audience's frame of reference observing the commotion.
Who remembers that old song - the daring young men (and women) on the flying trapeze? This is one of the reasons people come to the circus, to watch people do things at frightening heights that we in the audience could not imagine doing. Notice that the man is supporting the woman with just his feet under her arms. And with such grace!
A two-fer today. Another performer at Circus Flora came rolling out with one foot balanced on the back of a tiny tricycle, a posture I could only call precarious. And then she went on to do things with her joints at angles that a ball and socket should not be able to. She soon got her legs extended to 180 degrees from one another. Unimaginable.
The caption has nothing to do with combustible pastimes when I was in college. The person who played the defense counsel in The Trial Of The Century was something of a contortionist (and not the only one in the circus). It's hard to tell from this straight on view but that's a toilet seat he is wriggling his way through. I thought that part of the point of a toilet seat is that you couldn't get through it. Potty humor. The kids thought it was hilarious. Plenty of their parents did, too.
There is an organization affiliated with Circus Flora called Circus Harmony, https://circusharmony.org/, that teaches children and teens from our area the arts of acrobatics, tumbling and juggling. They are always part of the main circus performance and the skills are amazing. When I was about that age my best physical accomplishment was riding a bicycle, or maybe the subway.
Circus Flora always has a thread of a story to pull the performances together. The title of this fall's production is The Trial of the Century. One of the performers was accused of stealing the costumes and the jugglers' clubs and something else I forget. Clarence Darrow this wasn't. The man on the left was the over-the-top defense counsel and the woman on the right the prosecutor. Why he came out wearing a giant cartoon mask of himself was never explained but it was funny.
We temporarily interrupt the circus for a bad hair day. The kid had no school on Friday for some reason so she wheedled me to take her to our children's museum, The Magic House. One small room has a Van de Graaff generator, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_de_Graaff_generator, which pumps out very high voltage and very low wattage static electricity charges. You can buy one online if you like.
It produces this effect, making it a mandatory photo stop. Better Ellie than me. I don't have enough hair to make it worthwhile.
