When I was little, I used to be a serious “Star Search” fan. I remember watching the erstwhile 80s television show in the afternoons (or was it early evening?) while seated criss-cross-applesauce on the living room floor. I felt great fondness for its affable host, Ed McMahon, and great awe for the daily parade of talent to which it made me feel uniquely privy. My seven-or-eight-year-old self relished the neatly demarcated categories–modeling; stand-up comedy; singing and dancing, be it group, junior, or adult–eagerly anticipating each like the courses of an elaborate meal. Though a harbinger of the many noxious “reality” competitions that followed in its wake, “Star Search” still seems like a more innocent, less exploitive iteration of the variety show genre (think “Lawrence Welk” or “Soul Train”). Or maybe it’s just that I was more innocent. At any rate, as I’ve continued to weather the strange, slow slog of this pandemic, one “Star Search,” in particular, keeps coming vividly to mind.
I remember an episode that featured a contortionist in what must have been a category all its own. A surprisingly tall, lean, youngish man walked out onstage, clad in only a Speedo. His oddly hirsute swimmer’s build was accentuated not only by a deep tan, but what must have been body oil. This, alone, set my second-or-third-grade jaw agape. Next to him stood a clear glass cube, maybe about 3 x 3 X 3 ft. large. McMahon explained that said Adonis would be ensconcing himself entirely in said cube in under one minute. My incredulous response: NO. WAY. (Mind you, this was long before Cirque du Soleil, with its panoply of Twizzlerlike performers.)
Cue the suspenseful, reverb-laden music and the stop-clock. Utterly mesmerized, I watched as this man carefully folded himself into the cube like a piece of human origami, one lengthy, greasy limb at a time. First, a foot and leg outstretched, then awkwardly angled and bent into the box, like an insect’s. Tail and torso were next, followed by an arm that snaked around the opposite leg and, finally, the contortionist’s head, which he tucked into his armpit like a sleeping swan. It was like witnessing a breech birth in reverse. Once he was completely inside, a sequin-spangled assistant closed the side door of the cube and the man’s flesh pooled against the glass to which it was pressed. His entire body became a clenched fist, the clear glass around him suddenly clouding with the vapor from his breath. The assistant slowly spun the box on its rotating pedestal while I watched, unblinking, in horror and fascination.
Why does this image return to me so forcefully now? The answer seems fairly obvious: is this not how we’ve all been living, to some degree or another, for nearly a year? Surely I can’t be alone in marveling at the sudden contraction of our lives as a result of COVID. And, with vaccines and something like hope on the horizon, I realize I’ve forgotten something rather crucial about that episode–namely, how the contortionist got back out of the box. No doubt this required just as much time, torque, and flexibility as getting into it, if not more.
Well, then 