THE BALLOON MAN

Nik Wallenda in Atlantic City:
 Post-script
from: Philly.com Blog
by: Amy S. Rosenberg
August 20, 2012

 

Did we mention Nik Wallenda walked on a wire between the Atlantic Club and the Tropicana earlier this month? And that it was seen by about 100,000 people, give or take 50,000, according to crowd estimates. I thought it was super cool, in an unexpectedly subdued and meditative way, watching Wallenda walk high up in the air, on his own personal balance beam. I was relieved he didn't swing off it and have to grab it like a Fab Fiver on the Balance Beam, or meet a worse fate, like his great grandfather, Karl, who fell to his death on a similar walk. To me, it felt like everyone flying the same kite, that same kind of breathless wonder you feel to be connected to somthing so fantastical, so far away. Nik was cool the way he maintained eye contact with people during the walk. In any case, it was a big success for Atlantic City, say the marketers and image-keepers, but that still left Nik Wallenda, his wife Erendira, his mom, Delilah, his cousin Blake and a cast of a dozen or so old-fashioned circus performers _ a contortionist, an aerialist, a quick change of costume artist, a juggler, some swinging rope Guachos, his main man Michael Richter, who plays a clown in the act (with a particularly funny bit trying to get the audience to do a clap, snap, slap your thighs Louie Louie rendition) to go on with the show, which plays the Tropicana through Sept. 22. Nik relentllessly flogged the show, even pointing to the plane banner in the middle of his high wire walk. My daughter and I caught the show Sunday night, along with a bunch of other people who seemed to have gotten free tickets (there was a separate employee section and a comp section in the general admission seating area). Like the Morris Day and the Time show I saw the night before in the party like it's 1978 Superstar Theatre at Resorts, which has somehow escaped the glitzy redo of the rest of Resorts, it was an act that called on a lot of old fashioned entertainment values. Like Wallenda, Morris Day employs his own comic foil, who carries around a mirror. Between the two shows, I felt like I was back in an Atlantic City of an earlier era, maybe even like 1950, though Morris Day dates only from 80s Minneapolis.
read more at:
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/downashore/Nik-Wallenda-in-Atlantic-City-Post-script.html