Went to the circus tonight. After 10 minutes it became the best night out you ever had. Amazing, extraordinary, physical, beautiful, genuinely scary. Just awesome. But the first 10 minutes ... cheezy synth music, a 5 minute monologue about the birth of the Soviet Union (no I am not kidding), then a 'dance routine' that seemed to have not only been choreographed by a tortoise or possibly a sloth, but seemed to be executed by the 'dont give a bugger' rejects from the Glee club. They didn't even ring in the performance, they barely showed up - walked through it, were many seconds out of sync with each other. It was truly terrible. Our hearts filled with a) dread b) that was a waste of ?26 each c) err - isn't this supposed to be the best circus on the planet?? Then the circus stuff started. And it became clear that the dancers were actually amazing circus performers being forced into a dance as part of the evening's entertainment. And maybe the dance is a nice warm-up. Oh my word these guys are good. Decades of training and pain and striving for perfection, and it is dazzling to behold. Also, I have to add - the girls are not only talented beyond description, but they are beautiful beyond words. Phew. Standouts for me - the guys with the most awesome physiques you ever saw, proper, chiselled, superhero V-shaped torsos honed not from pointless press-ups and gym work but from goal-directed exercises and training, a body deliberately engineered to be able to DO STUFF to an outrageous and often unbelievable level of skill. Manouvering around from standing to sitting to squatting, with a 15 foot metal pole sitting on their heads, otherwise unsecured, with a girl of breathtaking gorgeousity atop the pole. How do you do that? The centre of gravity of the whole system is about 8 feet over their heads, the system is idiotically unstable - but they just glide and twist, and at one point even leap to a squatting position - with a pole and a girl on their heads. Nobody dies. And the metal poles are way long enough to fall into the crowd and take out the first row. Effing amazing. Then the jugglers - warp factor 4 juggling, mirrored clubs, dazzling lights, insane kinetic energies and rotational energies being transferred between 3 performers. Then they got onto a big old thing with arms 20 feet wide and it started rotating, fast - they were having to throw into the direction of motion and compensate for the weird rotating inertial frame they were in. Literally dazzling. Then the flying act - aerial slow dances with bungee ropes, with explosive Superman lift-offs, Cirque du Soleil rotating drops but with bungee cords instead of silks, so they BOUNCE at the extremes of motion. Silky smooth, such grace and quite beautiful, and then you gasp at the explosion of energy as they lift off. Oh, then the guys with the metal poles came back and did their act again - on a FRIKKIN' HIGH WIRE. Jesus. I watched the entire routine through a crack in my fingers, hands over my face and over my mouth, heart fluttering. I was genuinely scared for them. The girls on top of the pole on top of the guy had a safety wire, but the guys holding them didn't. My inner voice kept saying 'Oh My God. Oh My God. Oh My God. Oh My God' so loudly my lips were moving - this went on for a while, but the inner voice was answered and for the second time today, against the odds, nobody died. And then came the tumblers. Tumbling with ferocious velocity (velocity is key to the awe being inspired I feel) and incredibly short run-ups and only 6 feet from the landing point to the first row. Balls the size of Pluto ... and an awesome spectacle. Gasp. I've missed out at least 3 acts of equal talent and dazzletasticity. Plus the clowns were funny. The fact that a half-full house greeted such a display of skill and entertainment breaks my heart. Note on the clowns - eventually they were funny - initially they were just dull (to my sensibilities), but the Russians behind us were pi**ing themselves. The tent was *full* of Russians. And the staff refused to address them in Russian (which was very disciplined), they just pointed them at their seats in heavily-accented English. I cannot recommend this highly enough as an evening out. But don't take any stimulants before you go, your heart will stop.

Un geant crache du feu, un volcan crache Sa lave. Tout le visage est cisele dans la falaise, Le front dans le roc mais le c?ur dans la glaise. L’agile argile. Tout le c?ur est petrit a cette voix Qui defie la beaute, les ruines et les roches. Le nez porte l’aigle, et le regard le vent. Il approche le jour dans la nuit et les chevaux De ses doigts battent en duel l’ether et la sueur Dans la poussiere du temps, dans la poussiere Des cigarettes. Une figure de proue leve l’encre. Un geant traverse les regions d’une empreinte majuscule. Un volcan crache du feu. Il s’appelle Serge. ?.w Son nom est Serge [dimanche 10 octobre 2010] 14h23. ??? A giant fire-breathing, a volcano spews Its lava. Every face is chiseled into the cliff The front in the rock but the heart in the clay. The agile argil. While the heart is kneaded to this voice Defying beauty, ruins and rocks. The nose bears the eagle, and the gaze the wind. He approaches the day into night and the horses Of his fingers duel ether and sweat In the dust of time, in the dust Of cigarettes. A figurehead up the ink. A giant passes through regions of a capitalized fingerprint. A volcano spits fire. His name is Serge. :::::::::::::: ::: video Serge Gainsbourg.