Lord of the Fleas
Pull up a ringside chair -- and your socks.
The flea circus is back in town.
Nobody ever accused a flea circus of being the greatest show on earth. It lacks the spectacle of Cirque du Soleil, and has only a fraction of the eccentricity of a Jim Rose Circus Sideshow. The menagerie is entirely singular, and the costumes aren't that great. But the performers are tirelessly professional and admirably strong and agile. They also fit nicely in a box.
On a winter's day at a San Francisco science museum, a handful of circus-curious visitors are swarming into a claustrophobically small room like ants on a candy bar. The rest of us have to settle for a live video feed of the wee proceedings. The lights are dimmed, and an exotically beautiful woman, clad in skintight silver lamé and flicking the business end of a whip, rolls out what might generously be referred to as the big top.
To some, it's just a portable infestation, but to Maria Fernanda Cardoso, it's a cast of sword fighters, jugglers, weight lifters and ballerinas. The fantastic and the banal are all in the eye of the beholder. Look on the dim-sum-cart sized stage, and spotlights are swirling dramatically to set the mood. Look above, and there's a lady with two flashlights and busy wrists.
"These are Tini and Tiny," she announces in a genteel Latin accent, pointing to two indistinguishable black dots. "They're married." She perches the petite couple on a small wire and has them grasp needle-sized poles. And then, on impossibly slender hind legs, they begin to walk across. There's a tense moment when Tini (or is it Tiny?) loses footing and plummets several inches. Fortunately, no visible injuries are sustained. Next up Bounce the First and Bounce the Second are gently stuffed into intricate miniature cannons. A match is lit, and they torpedo through the air as if a junkyard dog were waiting on the other side. Brutus, the world's strongest flea, pulls a toy locomotive. And all I can think is -- which is the greater feat, that he's schlepping this train or that their ringmaster was able to tether him to it? And why would someone want to do this in the first place?
Next page: If Travolta can come back, why not vermin?
