Arts and Manners

“Greatest Show on Earth”

How to enjoy what would be for a while my last day in New York? I turned to the hedonist’s Bible, those front pages in the New Yorker which list all current entertainment, and there, under the plays and nightclubs, was news of tours and sessions at the UN, tickets available at the box office; since the demise of Barnum’s, the Greatest Show on Earth. It has a cast of thousands, a set that cost millions. Even its boasts of internationalism have about them an American ring of “biggest on earth.” The guides boast of 17 architects putting together the 57-million-dollar building with materials from all the member nations, and curving the walls and roofs, as Mike Todd boasts of his stars, his vast expenditures, his curved screen.

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Garry Wills

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“Greatest Show on Earth”

How to enjoy what would be for a while my last day in New York? I turned to the hedonist’s Bible, those front pages in the New Yorker which list all current entertainment, and there, under the plays and nightclubs, was news of tours and sessions at the UN, tickets available at the box office; since the demise of Barnum’s, the Greatest Show on Earth. It has a cast of thousands, a set that cost millions. Even its boasts of internationalism have about them an American ring of “biggest on earth.” The guides boast of 17 architects putting together the 57-million-dollar building with materials from all the member nations, and curving the walls and roofs, as Mike Todd boasts of his stars, his vast expenditures, his curved screen.