The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
In the New Yorker...
Jeff Wrangler:
I'm currently reading the article about Freudian psychoanalysis in China in the January 10 issue. It was interesting to learn that, evidently, traditionally, the Chinese believed that there were seven emotions: happiness, anger, sadness, fear, love, hatred, and desire. Apparently these emotions needed to be kept in balance for you to be healthy.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on January 15, 2011, 05:00:48 pm ---The Jan. 17 issue is the best I've read in a long time. ... The Lamb Roast was a sweet memoir of a party-giving couple in NY that reminded me of the BBQ.
--- End quote ---
I'm reading this story now. A sentence in the paragraph where the author describes going to the circus at Madison Square Garden rang memory's bell:
--- Quote ---"We met Gunther, the lion tamer, and marvelled at this blond hair, deep tan, and amazing ass--high, round, and firm, like two Easter hams--in electric blue tights."
--- End quote ---
That could only describe one person, someone I hadn't thought of in years: Gunther Gebel-Williams, who was a big circus star when I was a kid. I never saw him in person, only on TV. He was basically the headliner for the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. He performed his animal act dressed in flamboyant costumes--including, indeed, electric blue tights--and no shirt, which showed off his equally amazing abs, instead of the safari gear often associated with a lion tamer.
With my memory jogged, I googled him, and I came up with quite a few images of him in those electric blue tights and no shirt. Sadly, I also learned that he died, of cancer, in Florida, in 2001 at the age of 66 years.
Before there was Seigfreid and Roy, there was Gunther Gebel-Williams.
southendmd:
Jeff Wrangler:
I finished The Lamb Roast over lunch today. It sure would be nice to have a barbecue like that one. :)
On the basis of the geographic references, I presume the author grew up in or very near to New Hope, Pennsylvania. I know New Hope well, or did, anyway; I haven't been up there in years, now. It's an artsy place--appropriate for the author's scenic designer father and former dancer mother, and something of a haven for gay Philadelphians with automobiles. Her father's studio was in Lambertville, New Jersey, which is directly across the Delaware River from New Hope, and she writes about walking to Jersey after school for music lessons. You can do this by walking across the bridge between New Hope and Lambertville.
Jeff Wrangler:
I just noticed that the back cover of the January 24 issue includes an ad for Annie Proulx's memoir.
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