Go To the Circus

I found this book on Union Street in Brooklyn this summer ( thanks to lovebilly ). There were 101 interesting philosophies for everyday life, but this one sticks like tights. It was the first one I opened to and it was the first time I was truly homesick for New Orleans. It's Mardi Gras time and nothing compares more to a ring side Circus...only you can BE in the Circus as well.

GO TO THE CIRCUS!
"Beware of people who do not like the Circus. They are undoubtedly too efficient & too sure of themselves-ruthless. To understand the Circus, even if you are not particularly attracted to it, experiment with sitting near the circle. Choose a small circus, nothing too splendid, rather somewhat impoverished. Avoid Madison Square Garden, Barnum & other big concerns. With them it's harder to grasp what makes the circus so moving-it's mixture of misery and reverie.
For usually those places have something sordid about them-which is both intrinsic and necessary. The sawdust on the track, the smell of animal dung, the dust from the old marquees, the whiff of sweat below the tent canvas. It must also be an enclosed space: the circular ring, the canvas heaven the guard rails. The Circus encloses a space proper to itself, a world not to be confused with the rest of the Universe. You can define the Circus rather as you can define the human world itself.
In this circumscribed sphere, a bubble of dreams is constructed. In a very elementary or even stupid or vulgar fashion: sequins & paste & all that glitters. Heavy fake jewelry. False luxury. False chic, a facticious facility & a forced gaity against a background of grinding sadness. This is what makes the Circus so moving, an exemplary model of human: doggedly constructing laughable dreams out of filth and the muck. Every evening @ 8:30p with a Sunday matinee @ 3 o'clock.
You should head for the Circus tent. Line up for a bit and pay too much for the discomfort, the staleness & bad smells. For the uncomfortable seat. You will easily surmount these drawbacks & by watching the likeness of the acrobats & the skill of the conjurers you will feel you have escaped the crushing sense of failure. You'll even start to dream of a humanity full of crystal balls, lit by spotlight, smiling into the brass band, happy amid the cotton candy. The performance on stage will come to seem almost beautiful, courageous, worthy, full of virtues, capable of grand exploits, larger than life, their bodies shining like those of gods, so supple they are & light & swift & aerial. For a while float within this glittery bubble.
And then, crucially & most moving of all- something goes wrong. A juggler drops a ball, a trapeze misses, one of the animals remains obstinately motionless. You notice that the beautiful contortionist has a hole in her tights. Brusquely, you see something pitiful, some pride broke down to earth. some terrestrial dream, smudged as it always is, & always more or less wounded. A shattering failure. An image of human doggedness. You should go back to the Circus time & again."