Someone just mentioned this to me from a Bangkok news posting. I have no idea if it's real, a repost, or when it was, but I thought it was funny enough to share. Funny in a dark way, but funny. That burlyshirley guy seems like he would appreciate something like this.
circus star falls to her death
on saturday night, we were sitting around watching solstrom, which is a cirque de soleil tv show thingy, when we decided that we were well and truly over ppl hanging from chiffon curtains and doing little acrobatic twirls. the show we saw on saturday had at least three such acts... or it might have been two... i think i fell asleep in the middle of the second one.
well, just as we had pooh-poohed the whole idea of chiffon-artistry, this news comes in alerting us to the dangers of swinging on the curtains (just like mum used to say). this unlucky lass with ringling brothers and barnum and bailey circus sort of fell to her death.
so from now on i will treat curtain-swingers with the same respect as those who juggle chainsaws and swallow lions.
circussing is a pretty fricken dangerous occupation. i remember - going back a few years now - reading the news of how a midget act got cut short (no pun intended), when the hippo that the little guys were trampolining over happened to yawn at the wrong moment. one of the little guys sailed straight into his gullet (a hippo has a really fricken huge gullet, yeah?) and triggered his autonomic swallow reflex.
in other words, a midget landed in a hippopotamus's open mouth and the hippo swallowed him.
whole.
the audience rose to their feet at this incredible... well, feat... of magical midgetry, and the applause only slowly died away as they came to realise that, no, the hippo actually had swallowed the midget, and that it wasn't a trick.
the midget was duly digested and pooped out a few days later.
when the circus owners were aksked by authorities why they hadn't cut the hippo's throat and/or eviscerated it in an attempt the rescue the hapless midget, they explained that hippos were more expensive than midgets.
the hippo's poop was, by all accounts, given a decent burial.
*I will make no claims of responsibility for the poor capitalization. I took this from a blog.
circus star falls to her death
on saturday night, we were sitting around watching solstrom, which is a cirque de soleil tv show thingy, when we decided that we were well and truly over ppl hanging from chiffon curtains and doing little acrobatic twirls. the show we saw on saturday had at least three such acts... or it might have been two... i think i fell asleep in the middle of the second one.
well, just as we had pooh-poohed the whole idea of chiffon-artistry, this news comes in alerting us to the dangers of swinging on the curtains (just like mum used to say). this unlucky lass with ringling brothers and barnum and bailey circus sort of fell to her death.
so from now on i will treat curtain-swingers with the same respect as those who juggle chainsaws and swallow lions.
circussing is a pretty fricken dangerous occupation. i remember - going back a few years now - reading the news of how a midget act got cut short (no pun intended), when the hippo that the little guys were trampolining over happened to yawn at the wrong moment. one of the little guys sailed straight into his gullet (a hippo has a really fricken huge gullet, yeah?) and triggered his autonomic swallow reflex.
in other words, a midget landed in a hippopotamus's open mouth and the hippo swallowed him.
whole.
the audience rose to their feet at this incredible... well, feat... of magical midgetry, and the applause only slowly died away as they came to realise that, no, the hippo actually had swallowed the midget, and that it wasn't a trick.
the midget was duly digested and pooped out a few days later.
when the circus owners were aksked by authorities why they hadn't cut the hippo's throat and/or eviscerated it in an attempt the rescue the hapless midget, they explained that hippos were more expensive than midgets.
the hippo's poop was, by all accounts, given a decent burial.
*I will make no claims of responsibility for the poor capitalization. I took this from a blog.
