MADELEINE MONDAY

In this country Halloween can be wild fun for children and not a few adults. I'm not into it myself. It is vastly more commercialized than when I was a child. I don't like being frightened (some people think it's fun - I don't) or the implications of violence and death. For most American children, though, it is a sugar-fueled fantasy celebration.

Ellie is getting into Harry Potter. The books are a challenge for her reading level but she has made her way through most of the first one. She loves the movies. So yesterday she got herself up as Hermione (with some help from mom), mounted her broom and was about to take off from our front steps when I caught her.         

CITY DAILY PHOTO NOVEMBER THEME DAY - GREAT BIG MESS

Mess can be a sign of disorder and decay, but, if assembled well, can also convey joy and a free spirit. And no one would ever try to steal this car. Maybe a great big mess can ward off evil.      

WALL WALKERS

Another two for one, but the point is better illustrated this way. Barely visible in the top picture, there is a trampoline below these three performers. With precise timing and direction, they create Escher-like contradictions in space, walking horizontally on vertical surfaces while seeming to float perpendicular to them while sitting in the audience's frame of reference observing the commotion.            

THEY FLOAT THROUGH THE AIR WITH THE GREATEST OF EASE

Who remembers that old song - the daring young men (and women) on the flying trapeze? This is one of the reasons people come to the circus, to watch people do things at frightening heights that we in the audience could not imagine doing. Notice that the man is supporting the woman with just his feet under her arms. And with such grace!               

I WOULDN'T MAKE IT PAST THE FIRST BIT

A two-fer today. Another performer at Circus Flora came rolling our with one foot balanced on the on the back of a tiny tricycle, a posture I could only call precarious. And then she went on to do things with her joints at angles that a ball and socket should not be able to.She soon got her legs extended to 180 degrees from one another. Unimaginable.