Circus Krone's Colonel Joe, "the world's largest elephant", but still not big enough to keep them from mutilating his tusks

So the circus is in town. Clowns spilling out of tiny cars! Death-defying acts! Stilt-walkers! Lions and elephants! Yay! We’ll be bringing our little guy the moment he’s old enough! An icon of Americana!

Or, no. Call me a grouch, call me a killjoy, but I hate it. I hated it even as a little child. No, I do not find clowns creepy or scary, the way Kramer does–I just find them tedious. Trapeze acts and high-wire walking always seemed to me just dumb: “I am risking my life in order to do something difficult but fundamentally pointless. But I’m doing it with a net, so it’s not really all that risky, either.” It’s as if you took an Olympic event, like skiing or bobsledding, then stripped out the competition aspect. Every performer at the circus gets a medal, just for Not Falling to His Death.

Add to that all the grim stories about mistreatment of animals–whether true or false–and the whole thing takes on a leaden, joyless cast. Plus, as I remember (and as the Times reports in that story linked up above) it’s a rather cynical entertainment enterprise. Ringling Bros. seems hellbent on separating you and your dollars, as rapaciously as George Steinbrenner, whose rapacious nature is at least a little more obvious. Plus there, at least, you get the sense that your overpriced ticket is buying a better shortstop than, say, the Kansas City Royals have, in the ongoing Moneyball backstage game. I seriously doubt that Ringling Bros. is out there trying to pick up an up-and-coming young lion tamer before a competing circus signs her out of Florida State.

The only time I get remotely warm feelings about the circus, in fact, is during the annual elephant parade, when the big gray beasts come into Manhattan through the Queens-Midtown Tunnel on foot. That, at least, connects the event to the New York life,  ever-so-slightly, and feels intimate in a way that nothing else about the circus does. Plus it goes directly past our apartment building–which means, if I have anything to say about it, it will have to be the only circus-attending our boy does until he’s old enough to buy his own tickets.