Just before Christmas Steve Worth sent me a comment about the new histories of the circus and of magic by Taschen, and I just spent some time looking at them on the Taschen book site. Wow, very nice! Very pricey, too... over $200 for both books; too much for my budget. Even so, they're worth a mention here. I get a million ideas when I look at stuff like that.
One of the ideas has to do with something I might have mentioned before, viz., that LA (and every town with cultural aspiration) desperately needs an arts district, or, more specifically, an arts street like the one in Edo depicted by Hiroshige above and below.
I prefer an arts street on the old Japanese model, with open store fronts and raised stages for hucksters to hype what's inside.
Here's (above) a ground view of the same pedestrian street. My preference is to limit the stores to crafts theater: marionettes, puppets, ethnic dancers, magic shows, circus-style acrobatics, small-scale live theater and the like. It would be great if movie theaters and contemporary dance halls were close by, but this street should be reserved for up-close entertainments of a more traditional Japanese sort.
Here (above) you can better see the small stages and balconies reserved for the barkers. I don't see any stairs, so I wonder how customers were expected to enter these shops.
The second floor (above) would offer a superb view of the street and shops.
The facades should all be Japanese, but I picture some of the entertainments as being old European (above).
Some would be European, but most would be Japanese, or at least Asian. Here's (above and below) a couple of pictures of modern-day Hanoi's "Long Water Puppet Theater." Things like this would work well on the arts street.
Do the puppeteers really work underwater?
Many thanks to Craig, who sent me this video clip (above) in a comment. According to Craig the puppets are on long, hollow poles with strings inside, and the puppeteers are standing behind the silk fence in the background.
Old European magic shows (above) are second to none in their appeal to the weird and exotic, so I might throw some of them in there too.
Man, I love magic shows!
I love carnival shows (above), too. Is their any way to integrate American carnival with the Japanese theme? Maybe not.
11 comments:
Magic posters are a lost art. Have you devoted a post to them yet?
I'm pretty sure that the stairs were on the insides of buildings. Kinda like modern houses.
The Taschen books include chapters on the circus in other countries (like Japan and China) and stage magicians that dressed in Japanese or Chinese garb. You'll go ape over these books. (I got the Don Martin set and complete Vault of Horror and Tales from the Crypt too.) Your cultural center is in the bookcases of my living room. When can you come over for a visit? This week sometime?
By the way, the Don Martin set is selling for $40 at ebay and the Taschen XL Rembrandt and Magic are marked down to $125 at Amazon.
You ask if the puppeteers really work underwater? We saw this group when it performed live outside @ Lincoln Center in NYC. The puppeteers actually stand in waders behind the back curtain (which is really the front of a tent.) The puppets are on long poles with buoys under them to give them balance and ballast. They are jointed and rigged with ropes that extends along the pole. The puppeteers got some very lively movement from the choreography, and the tales depicted mostly peasant life: working the rice fields, cooking, the village idiot, etc. It was totally charming and felt like a folk-art trip back in time.
I gotta say, I'd prefer the stores to be close together like in the paintings.
Steve: Many thanks for the tip about the books, and for the invitation to see them up close. Let's do it! This week would be fine. When's good for you?
$40 for the Don Martin set is a steal! Somebody jump on this, quick!!!!!!
Craig: Oh, Man! I'm so envious! I wish I could have seen the water show up close!
Anon: I've done a couple of posts about magic posters, and will doubtless do more!
I got the Taschen" Magic" book as a present for someone this Christmas, and not only is it available for far less than the list at Amazon(as always), it's worth every penny and then some. It's simply astonishing.
What are your thoughts on manga/anime Eddie? I think there is some great stuff out there but it suffers from the same stagnation on formulism as western animation.
My favorite anime is mostly 80's stuff like Lupin and Akira, theres just something about the aesthetic and atmosphere to anime from that era I find very appealing.
Here's a clip with a couple of key moments from the VIETNEAMESE WATER PUPPET SHOW.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AftYN3-dbtg
You can imagine an itinerant puppet troupe traveling from village to village - - all they needed to do the show was to set up in the local pond.
Those water puppeteers wouldn't have needed to come ashore at all, except to pass the hat. They could just set up next to a busy section of riverbank.
Eddie:
The city fathers of North Hollywood ought to ask you how to build an Arts District! The best theater I've seen there is at Tokyo Delve's.
Jenny: Thanks for the info! Now i REALLY want to see these books!
Anon: If I wasn't a funny-type cartoonist myself, I'd probably like anime a lot more than I do. It's a good medium for funny stories, but not a good medium for funny drawing.
Craig: Many thanks for the clip! I reworked the post to fit it in. I hope I remembered to give you credit. I'll go back and check, just to be sure!
Pappy: Tokyo Delve's? Hmmmm...I'll keep an eye out for it!
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