And to a large degree the cynical side of me goes, Yeah yeah, America doesn’t deserve a Ringling Bros. It really doesn’t. Because for 146 years we’ve been teaching you. Yeah. How we can all live together, how we can all work together, to make something beautiful. How every person matters, every job, and this is what we’re mourning. Not a show but a society. Lots of shows close down but this is a society. Black, white, woman, man, performer, or crew, everyone’s equal here, everyone’s important. You know, since I’ve been here I’ve developed a great affection for animals, but seriously, I’m from New York City, I’m from Harlem; before the circus the most exotic animal I’d ever been around was a squirrel, so I’m not going to get into that cage with the cats, I’m not going to get up on that trapeze bar, but we each have our own role, which gives us dignity. My first dressing roommate, Mark, was as white as day and he wouldn’t go on to perform unless this one member of the floor crew, Rafael Suarez, who’s Mexican, had rigged his apparatus, and they didn’t even speak the same language; they just talked with their hands. But they had this mutual respect. This sense of responsibility for each other. Of all the lessons I’ve learned in the circus, about humanity, about being an artist, about making art and how to sell art, which is also an art, which the circus did a lot to invent, this was the most profound. That you’re responsible. I am. We are. For each other. You understand? And that’s what the circus is. Just what its name says it is. What does it mean? From the Latin. From the Greek. It’s a circle.