A fellow nursing student posted this piece from last week's San Francisco Chronicle. It's actually a review of Michael Chabon's new collection of essays, Maps & Legends, but the review takes notice of the ever-great nurse novel genre, one we know well thanks to the previously mentioned Tiny Pineapple. Long-time columnist Jon Carroll who wrote the article also happens to be father of the wonderfully talented Shana Carroll of Les 7 Doigts de la Main, a fabulous and wildly successful, self-made circus troupe. Here is a Hearing Voices interview where Jon talks to Shana about her decision to become an aerialist. It is a part of a larger, 54 minute radio documentary called Circus Blood.
Showing posts with label Static Trapeze. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Static Trapeze. Show all posts
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Circus Blood
A fellow nursing student posted this piece from last week's San Francisco Chronicle. It's actually a review of Michael Chabon's new collection of essays, Maps & Legends, but the review takes notice of the ever-great nurse novel genre, one we know well thanks to the previously mentioned Tiny Pineapple. Long-time columnist Jon Carroll who wrote the article also happens to be father of the wonderfully talented Shana Carroll of Les 7 Doigts de la Main, a fabulous and wildly successful, self-made circus troupe. Here is a Hearing Voices interview where Jon talks to Shana about her decision to become an aerialist. It is a part of a larger, 54 minute radio documentary called Circus Blood.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
No, You Are Not Fat
Can we just get this straight? There is a cultural obsession with body image and I am convinced it goes hand-in-hand with the feminism problem. And I don't mean that feminism can solve it, I mean that modern expectations of/for women exacerbate it. Women around me lately seem totally obsessed. I, too, am guilty of said preoccupation from time to time.
Granted, circus girls look a lot like this, which is to say circus bodies are not traditionally feminine nor particularly skinny. And that's a big change for some. But other women around me seem even more singularly-minded. Today alone (it's noon) I've heard one woman, weighing maybe 90 pounds soaking wet, say she was having a "juice" for lunch "because I have to watch my calories" (?) while another of similar proportion told me, "All I do is eat. Look at me." I wanted to say, "I can hardly see you."
Unless you are suffering from morbid obesity, which is an entirely different physiological problem, don't even ask me, because no, I don't think you are fat and, no, I don't want to argue with you all of your dissatisfactions with your body.
To be frank, that kind of discussion is incredibly punishing to all of the other women around you.
~ Postscript: the picture above is of Laverie Vallee née Cooper, bka Charmion (1875-1949), an American vaudeville trapeze artist and strongwoman, best known for her act during which she disrobed on the static trapeze (down to her leotard). You can see the act here, in a short film made by Thomas Edison (1901).
Granted, circus girls look a lot like this, which is to say circus bodies are not traditionally feminine nor particularly skinny. And that's a big change for some. But other women around me seem even more singularly-minded. Today alone (it's noon) I've heard one woman, weighing maybe 90 pounds soaking wet, say she was having a "juice" for lunch "because I have to watch my calories" (?) while another of similar proportion told me, "All I do is eat. Look at me." I wanted to say, "I can hardly see you."Unless you are suffering from morbid obesity, which is an entirely different physiological problem, don't even ask me, because no, I don't think you are fat and, no, I don't want to argue with you all of your dissatisfactions with your body.
To be frank, that kind of discussion is incredibly punishing to all of the other women around you.
~ Postscript: the picture above is of Laverie Vallee née Cooper, bka Charmion (1875-1949), an American vaudeville trapeze artist and strongwoman, best known for her act during which she disrobed on the static trapeze (down to her leotard). You can see the act here, in a short film made by Thomas Edison (1901).
Friday, April 25, 2008
A Brief Circus History
After training since the summer of 2006, off and on, in acrobatics and on the static trapeze - and since December on the tissu - I decided that today I would try out a new circus apparatus, the single point trapeze.Like all circus endeavors: humbling.
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