Las Vegas – Clownmommy

Time Passages

I feel it more strongly now, the passage of time.

Tonight was the last New York Downtown Clown Revue and Golden Nose Awards.

A community of clowns.

Moving on.

There were two new babies there.

I remembered the Clown College Reunion at Circus Circus in Las Vegas in 2001. Somewhere there is a photo of me in full makeup and costume wearing my baby in a bijorn carrier

Some clowns talked of weddings.

I remembered all the Annex weddings at the end of the 1990’s.

Our kids are big now. A new generation is just starting marriages and families.

The mortality elephant-in-the-room, cancer, was there in conversation about a mutual friend in the hospital and in the presence one who hid her bald head under a hat.

And the story keepers there too;

Hovey Burgess gave an award to Michael Christianson and told stories of the days of Larry Pisoni and The Pickle Family Circus and the San Francisco Mime Troupe and touring Europe and the early days of the Big Apple Circus. Jim Moore was there with his camera.

It is a real community, the clown community.

Mortality

Via facebook I learn of the death of an elementary school classmate.

Five days older than me, she will never be the age I am now.

The Husband, My Kid and I took the train to Union Square and bought books at Strand.

We ate guacamole and drank margaritas at the Mexican restaurant where the plastic men dive from the wall.

They went back to Brooklyn and I went to the Krane Theatre to see the New York Downtown Clown Revue.

Afterwards Phoebe’s Bar was the place to be.

One will go to Las Vegas to work for Cirque du Soleil. Another will teach a class. A third has his arm in a sling.

There is only one more Downtown Clown Revue left.

Cirque du Soleil Reverie

I spent so much time with clowns and art this week that when the younger single people sitting at the table in the diner after the late night Clown Lab after Downtown Clown Revue started talking about putting their tapes together to apply for the upcoming Cirque du Soleil auditions I thought I was one of them.

They say there is lots of work. New shows are in development and existing shows need replacement cast. My friends have studio time booked and video cameras ready to complete their applications.

Riding the A train back to Brooklyn I was mentally cataloguing the video I have of myself in performance, what was recorded during the last production and what I might still need. Cirque du Soleil is to circus people what Broadway is to musical comedy triple threats. It is both the summit of all aspirations and the kind of high calibre gig that leads to more work. Who knows, maybe The Husband will be transfered to Las Vegas. Maybe another Cirque show will set up in New York. Maybe I could become attached to something that has a long development process and touring doesn’t become a reality until My Kid is in middle school or high school.

I walk through the door to our apartment. It is nearly 3 am. The lights are on and the TV is blaring because My Kid had fallen asleep in the front room watching the Disney Channel while waiting for me to come home.

She has written a note: “Tonight I was going to go to sleep with mom but she had to do something like see a clown show. So I tried to stay from going to sleep.”

Jeff Raz said the hardest part about touring with Cirque du Soleil was being away from his family.

So…

Never mind.