Cirque du Blasé

Another day, another Cirque show. This was "O", our fifth Cirque production if you count "La Nouba" from our honeymoon. The rest we've seen here in Vegas.

I'm getting really jaded about these shows. People on fire, million-gallon water tanks with moving platforms, death-defying acrobats. None of it fazes me now. I was incredibly bored through the whole thing, and wishing I had a bingo card to check off all of the rote Cirque trademarks. Annoying mime pre-show, check. Black guy sent out alone to stomp the yard for ten minutes while sets change, check. Planted "audience members" invited onstage and turning out to be acrobats, check. Do we have any takers for people riding on enormous animal-shaped head floats? How about people whose sole job in the show is to lurch around slowly and vogue? Yes, and yes!

Yawn.

I needed "French-Canadian performer asks audience member to remove lid from jar of rainbows" to get bingo, and I almost had it, since there was a book called "Colors on Parade" in the gift shop that was full of wacky tightrope walkers playing with rainbows. Whimsical! Less so was the book on the Cirque du Soleil method of achieving proactivity in business, or some such cheese-moving executive inspirational nonsense. I guess after $15 mugs, $12 programs, $24 soundtrack CD's, and $50 T-shirts, their paradigm was the last thing left to sell. Except maybe the little Asian gymnasts, but you have to remember to put air-holes in the box and never feed them after midnight.

Do you think I'd really get in trouble if I punched one of the mimes? If so, how much? It might be worth it.