Homesickness

Nothing makes me miss college more than attending the kind of entertainment that was rampant on campus. You know the radical cheerleaders? We had some of those. And though the choreography of cute, earnest, androgynous adolescents never convinced anyone of anything, it was totally great to watch.

Circus Amok, the subversive clowning show which Mr. Ben and I trekked out to Coney Island to see today, reminded me a lot of them. In fact one of the performers looked SO MUCH like a thicker, butcher version of my friend and former radical cheerleader S. Kelly that I felt a pang go all the way out to Seattle, where S. Kelly is currently buttering cupcakes for the ACLU. Or something. S. Kelly, and all those other fugitive '04ers on the west coast, come home!

More to the point: Circus Amok gathered a huge crowd, and when I say it was diverse I don't mean that it was, like, black. I saw black families, Hispanic families, Orthodox Jewish families, Muslim families, and lots of assorted vagabond types like Mr. Ben and me. The parents in general didn't seem to be turned off by the cheerfully political bent to the show (one of the acts is a gymnastic tribute to the lefty governments of South America) and the gender playfulness of the performers.

While the performers managed to weave a statement on immigration or health care or race relations into every one of the acts I can remember except the one wear a guy takes a wire coat hanger and works it all the way up his body and eventually over his head, none of it would have worked if the clowning and acrobatics weren't so much fun to watch. All of the details, from the colorful ragtag costumes and the klezmer-style band, worked to the troupe's advantage and made sure that, first and foremost, their show was entertaining.

The rest of the weekend was notable principally because I began eating adult food again. Three cheers for feta, scallion and tomato omelettes! They taste especially good when you've been eating nothing but noodles for DAYS. And while I participated in two social situations where I felt like I had to play hostess (ick), I also got to spend a lot of quality time with my nahvel. I will have a first draft done by Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. So help me, I will.