Word: barnumism
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...entire troupe, including costumes and apparatus, could fit into a clown car with room left over for a family of four. This is far too modest to be the greatest show on earth. How about something simpler: a one-ring wonder. The sweetest little circus this side of Barnum...
...Barnum Houses, 21 squat buildings marooned on the western edge of the city, are not an easy place to raise children, especially boys. The eldest son Gerrod, 20, fell first -- dropping out of school, smoking marijuana, then using cocaine -- and is serving a five-year sentence in North Carolina for breaking and entering. "I was out in the streets, hanging with the wrong crowd," he says. The third brother Jeremy began selling drugs. "Jeremy wanted things," says his mother. "It's that fast money. They want Michael Jordan sneakers and all that stuff they see." Jeremy was shot to death...
RINGLING BROS. AND BARNUM & BAILEY CIRCUS. "The Greatest Show on Earth" lives up to its own grandiose billing in its 121st year. From the Crescendo of Cats to the fingernail-biting Globe of Death, a motorcycle thriller, this all- American tradition is sure to delight. In New York City through April 28, then on to Providence, New Haven and Hartford...
...make much use of training in Shakespeare or Method-style character analysis. But they say acting study helps nonetheless. Kevin Kraft, 22, is a University of Southern California junior in his second summer as a clown and juggler at Hersheypark; he has also toured with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Says Kraft: "If I pretend in slow motion to grab for a nonexistent ball, I'd better have a real intention to catch it, which is acting technique, or the comedy falls flat...
Like many immigrants, the short story was born in Europe and flourishes across the Atlantic. Case in point: The Barnum Museum (Poseidon; 237 pages; $18.95). Although Steven Millhauser can tell a straightforward anecdote, his true strength is magic realism. In one tale a boy steps behind a movie screen to find rooms full of ectoplasmic actors coming to life for an audience of one; in another, a certain Mr. Porter runs into inclement weather and washes away like a watercolor in a rainstorm. Brilliant parodies, pastiches and comments on Alice in Wonderland, Sinbad and T.S. Eliot show how this gifted...