My darlings, let us never underestimate the power of escapism. I 'persuaded' one of my most cynical, musical-loathing companions to watch Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. And, try as she might to keep occasionally commenting on its ridiculousness, she was 'ssh!'-ing us all in spite of herself in order to hear the hero's grovelling apology upon his return, laughing at the 'Sobbin' Women' song, and grudgingly admiring the choreography of the barn-raising scene.
At one point, she even mused over the Wild West frontier setting, "Hmm... there's something strangely appealing about that way of life, isn't there? It would be hard work and very simple, but there was a kind of mutual respect between men and women... the roles were clear, and you could be the matriarch..." And this coming from the most aggressively feminist ball-buster of my acquaintance!
But this is where the magic lies. The reality of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers-style living was probably a great deal grimmer and more unpleasant than Stanley Donen portrays it. The reality of the Rat Pack and the Golden Age of Hollywood was probably nothing like I daydream it, either. But that we can daydream ourselves into something or somewhere better, even if it never really existed... as the fabulous Daphne Guinness says: "Of course couture will survive. The world needs to be filled with romance and otherworldly dreams."
Travelling circuses were, in reality, mostly brutal and desperate communities. But I still daydream of running away with the Rambling Rosehip Players from the world of Redwall...
Besides, my circus would be different. It would be magic.
"He was weary of himself, of cold ideas and brain dreams. Life a poem? Not when you went about forever poetizing about your own life instead of living it. How innocuous it all was, and empty, empty, empty! This chasing after yourself, craftily observing your own tracks - in a circle, of course. This sham diving into the stream of life while all the time you sat angling after yourself, fishing yourself up in one curious disguise or another! If he could only be overwhelmed by something--life, love, passion--so that he could no longer shape it into poems, but had to let it shape him!
...And yet this living on at half speed in quiet waters, always in sight of land, seemed so paltry. Would that the storm and waves would come! If he only knew how, his sails should fly to the yards for a merry run over the Spanish Main of life! Farewell to the slowly dripping days, farewell to the pleasant little hours! Peace be with you, you dull moods that have to be furbished with poetry before you can shine, you lukewarm emotions that have to be clothed in warm dreams and yet freeze to death! May you go to your own place! I am headed for a coast where sentiments twine themselves like luxuriant vines around every fiber of the heart - a rank forest; for every vine that withers, twenty are in blossom; for each one that blossoms, a hundred are in bud. Oh, that I were there!"
-Jens Peter Jacobsen, 'Niels Lyhne'
Let's stowaway together, you and I, and dance with the elephants in the Big Top...
"You pretend to be more eccentric than you actually are because you fear you are an interchangeable cog."
-Douglas Coupland
Florentine carousel.
"This is our secret clubhouse, where the password is, 'Louboutin' and we feed one another cupcakes. We live boldly - one-person symphonies of colour and light. We revel in breaking up monotony; we are full of delight. We cause a scene when we walk down the street. We are unapologetically true to ourselves. We are full of love and enthusiasm and committed to living a beautiful life."
-Gala Darling
Tomorrow, I challenge you to dress up like a Ringmistress...
Manish Arora
Heatherette
And let's not forget fragrance - I still love
B Never Too Busy To Be Beautiful's
Superworldunknown, inspired by "ideas about circus rings and fairgrounds. The work followed the muse and a tent sprung up on the moors. The result? Superworldunknown. If running away to join the circus smells of something good, this is it. The smell of candy floss, sherbert fountains, toffee apples and the seaside, yet sophisticated… escapist perfumery really."
"They are the humble village circuses that pitch their brief camp in a field, beat their drums, blow their trumpets, put out their streamers, pocket their gate-money, and depart again after a prodigious litter and ruin of demolition and repacking. These are the humble circuses of summer; where they hibernate I do not pretend to know. They come with the swallows and leave with the autumn, a ragged, bright, thievish, vagrant fraternity, associated with sun and dust and parched fields; they are the brood of summer, and for them winter has no place."
-Vita Sackville-West for Vogue, February 1925
