Twentieth century theory has had its share of stars. Many are remembered for phrases that have become clichs. The post-modern phenomenon of books like the Idiot's Guide to Existentialism, Socrates for Dummies, and The Tao of Pooh, has condemned many serious thinkers to be remembered as clichs. McLuhan is the message, and he was also the guy in the Woody Allen film! Bourdieu has also featured in a film, called "Sociology is a Combat Sport." Derrida has had a radio show, denying responsibility for most of the things for which he is famous. Barthes wrote "The Death of the Author." He did the great disappearing illusion: he was seen getting into a box/book, when-Poof!-the box/book was seen to be empty! He re-appears upstage as the remarkable author of the text with no author! Deafening applause! Not surprisingly, the literary audience cannot wait for the next act. It is Slippery Jack Derrida, the deconstructing man!

      If, as I have suggested, a little learning about theory is the norm, then it is quite valid to equate its study with the catch phrases and special effects of the circus ring. Conversely, if a circus performer has studied his craft long and carefully, and consciously tackled a feat or concept never done before, then he deserves much more that the scant and prejudiced consideration usually accorded to his kind.

      In a search for what makes a philosopher famous, we find a pantheon of critics-Benjamin, de Man, Hillis Miller, James-whose analyses can beatify the new arrival on the firmament. We also detect a succession: humanism, structuralism, post-structuralism, psychoanalytical criticism. feminism, Marxism, queer theory, new historicism, post-colonialism, post-modernism. If not entirely chronological, like the Houses who held the English Throne, they do seem to be mutually exclusive, each eclipsing the one before it. It does seem to be that after the great schools of philosophy, Greek, British, French and German that we are familiar with, the Twentieth Century seems to have delivered, mostly from France, a hit-parade of Fashion Philosophers, with special interest 'Boutique Theories.'

      Important to this relationship between circus and theory, between Leotard and Lyotard, is that discourse would only go one way. We have no record of Jules Leotard's work being influenced by cultural theory, nor did his act seem to comment on structuralism, post-modernism nor even liberal humanism. His one-piece costume may have put him in the avant-garde of feminism, and a flying man holds central place in the "dream theory" of psychoanalysis, but these readings must surely be retrospective, rather than active, on his part.

      Lyotard could speak on Leotard, but not vice versa. Would this make Leotard the farmer, and Lyotard the chef? A primary producer, Leotard, interpreted by a sophisticate, Lyotard, who makes palatable the work of a primitive. Is Leotard the tree, and Lyotard the ivy? The mammal and the tape-worm, or the host and the parasite?

      In the spirit of 'Deep Wisdom for Shallow Idiots,' or 'We're post-modern now, anything goes!', let us invite a group of cultural theorists to the Cirque Napolean to see Jules Leotard, 'That Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze.' Imagine this group of cultural theorists clustered in one of the boxes reserved for the aristocracy, or the nouveaux riches. They have heard the rumours, they have read the bills, and now they gather to read the text (see the show).

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