Today, as we warned a few months ago, is the final performance ever of the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus
The circus world will carry on. But RBBB was an institution, the only American arts organization I can think of that ranks with, say, Mount Rushmore, or the Statue of Liberty as an American monument. A living American monument. P.T. Barnum started presenting performers in 1835, when New York City was by our standards a village at the very bottom of Manhattan. There is no American theatre, and no American theatre artist or show biz performer who doesnt owe something to his enterprises. With my apologizes to my beloved Barnum Museum in Bridgeport, CT, to have his name wink out on marquees, as well as those of James A. Bailey and the Ringling Bros, is a dark day for America, and the world. No Barnum, no Broadway and no Hollywood. Fuck you, Seth MacFarlane and Ricky Gervais, for cheering about it online. The RBBB wasn’t an entity reducible to a single policy (however badly that policy needed to be changed or revisited). It was the mother of American show business.
For my recent address on the state of the American circus go here.
(Travalanche) 