Posts Tagged ‘Circus’

three happy pumpkins on a woodland path

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Cast of Wonders 612: The Illusionist’s Tent

Cast of Wonders 612: The Illusionist’s Tent is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:24 — 29.4MB)

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Show Notes

Additional audio production by Eric Valdes of Podcastle

Trick-or-treaters: Rebecca Ahn, Amy Brennan, Katherine Inskip, Samuel Poots, Ryn Richmond

1360 words

The Illusionist’s Tent

by H. K. Payne

I was told we had the night off, but I guess no one told you kids that. Tell me, whose idea was it to come trick-or-treating through our camp? I suppose it was yours, since you’re the only one here. You do realize we’re a bunch of broke circus performers, don’t you? Well, since you’re here, we might as well get this over with. Which do you want: the trick or the treat?

Treat? All right, let’s see. What have I got… Here you go. A handbill folded into the shape of a bird.

What do you mean, it doesn’t look like a bird? It’s a swan, obviously.

You have some nerve, showing up outside a man’s tent on his night off, demanding a treat and then insulting his paper-folding abilities. Yes, I know it’s not a very good paper swan, but what do you expect? This isn’t my area of expertise. You’re the one who came to an illusionist asking for a treat.

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 475: Miss Tansybaum’s Circus of the Moderately Peculiar

Originally published at the author’s website

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:05 — 9.7MB)

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Miss Tansybaum’s Circus of the Moderately Peculiar

by T Kingfisher

By all accounts, Miss Tansybaum’s Circus of the Moderately Peculiar should not have continued to operate. They were a very small operation as circuses went, they had no rides and their menagerie consisted of a single geriatric lion and a handful of obscure species, such as the Sudanese Crooning Lizards, who were obscure for a reason. Sure, Brendan the Mono-juggler could keep a single ball in the air for hours, but you got tired of watching after the first few minutes.

Lord Maggothaunch’s Carnival of the Un-Ordinary should have crushed them out of existence in the first year–indeed, that was among the lord’s stated goals–and its failure to do so was a source of intense frustration for him. Did he not have scantily clad women and a genuine, if sullen tiger? Did he not have a genuine freakshow, with real live freaks, including a pair of dubious Siamese twins and a two-headed calf in a jar?

Miss Tansybaum did not have a freakshow (at least not in the conventional sense, although the less charitable would argue that the entire operation qualified.) Instead she had Sister Rosemary’s Curious Convent. (Continue Reading…)