Wow, things have been busy lately. Two stories.
The other night, I walked into my apartment to find an older man in a suit holding a clipboard earnestly talking to my roommate about another person. I thought maybe it was someone investigating a missing person, but after listening in for a bit, I figured out what was going on.
He was a CIA man.
I did my dishes slowly as I listened to him ask all sorts of questions about a girl who used to live in the apartment complex. The CIA certainly digs deep--and they certainly want clean-cut people working for them.
How long have you known her? the CIA man asked. Do you know of her living anywhere else? Did she spend time with people who did drugs? Did she do drugs? Over the counter medication? Was she an active person? Did she have hobbies? What were they? What would she do if she had some free time? Was she emotionally stable? Was she one of those people who was always looking to be the center of attention? Did she act her age? Does she stay in contact with any foreigners? What are their names? Where do they live? Did she have any kind of secrets that could be used against her? Did her family? Was she patriotic? Was she involved in any kind of anarchic or subversive group? Would you trust her working in a high-security clearance position for our government? Is she a moral person?
I wondered how the CIA man felt about his job. He probably has the same high-level security clearance, and this is what he does--finds and interviews people about other people. It might be interesting to put together a picture of a person, at least.
Yesterday, my friend Natalie and I went to see Disney on Ice: Princess Wishes. Natalie's friend, a year away from becoming a civil engineer, sent an audition video to Feld Entertainment and is now a professional skater. She has been on the road since last August skating parts like Dopey the dwarf and Princess Jasmine in the ice show. They came to Salt Lake, and she got two free tickets for Natalie, who invited me to come along to see her.
There is a scene in the show--the Ariel section--with guys dressed up as sailors who come out and do their thing. For part of the number, they have a seesaw, and one skater stands on one end and then two jump onto the other end, sending the first skater flying. They did this three times--the first time, the flying skater was caught and lifted over the head of another skater who was standing on a big platform; the second time caught dramatically; the third, they hoisted a chair on a long pole and the skater flipped in the air and landed sitting on it.
This was neat to see, but freaked me out a little--and even more so when Natalie's friend told us about the stunts while we were having lunch after the show. Last year, they went to do the first flying skater move, and something missed, and the guy fell and cracked his head open. There was blood everywhere--so much blood that they had to stop the show.
It was a first for
Feld Entertainment, the company that runs Disney on Ice shows, and also things like circuses. She said that people have died in shows before--saying that people have fallen off of high wires, things like that, and they just drag them off and keep going.
They cut the seesaw-flying-skater moves out of the show for awhile, and now they just do them every-other show. And the guy who cracked his head open is out there doing them again.
