Carnivals are swampy places. Vermin and salt and sweat. I’ve never actually been to a carnival, so this may only be a bad reputation. Unless you count the time I worked at a carnival, of course. A slick commercial carnival, perhaps.
Today has been one MF of a carnival. I’d rather not talk about it. (the shame)
Jazz
Carnival of carnage in these halls…..the proverbial gore of a thousand college students’ brains lay scattered in the annals of test failures and flopped pop quizzes. I think I can still see my spirit floating above that classroom, hovering, expectant for eternity, yearning to understand the lesson once and for all!
Carnival is just like a festival. Almost. It reminds me of Mardi Gras, New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina. What a dark transition. What does that say about me, that thinking of a festival would inspire me to remember an awful disaster.
this is a fun exciting event that u can go to see and play really fun games. i think this is the best thing for fundraisers and also for just fun. the state also does a fair but that is not a carnival.
Max
You wear your expressions like they are as exchangable as carnival masks–easily supplied and just as easily replaced in the blink of an eye.
disgustingly unhealthy food. dizzying low-level intelligence. ear harmfully loud music. rides that almost make me vomit as bad as the sight of pitiful patriotic people who surround me everywhere when i’m there.
–
i f*cking hate carnivals. that’s all i want to say.
rides that almost make me vomit worse than the sight of pitiful patriotic people. disgustingly unhealthy food. dizzying low-level intelligence. ear harmfully loud music.
–
i fucking hate carnivals. that’s all i want to say.
“Cotton candy?” Her eyes were wider than the first-place trophy on the cake table. “A whole cone, all for myself?”
The man in black swallowed hard, working to keep his temper under control as he favored the little imp with what he hoped was a normal smile. “Yes, a whole one. You can have two, if you want.”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely positive. I won’t go broke from buying two cones of cotton candy.”
The smile wavered and her grip on his sleeve tightened. “T-thank you…Da.”
“You’re more than welcome, brat.” He said. The smile was fond this time. He’d buy her a thousand cones of cotton candy if she asked. Anything, anything at all to make up for the years lost between them. The next idiot to stand between him and his daughter would be eating out of a straw.
I went to a carnival with you
and you gave me a teddy bear
but I wouldn’t let you give it to me
because you deserve something too,
like some popcorn or cotton candy,
but instead I just took the bear
and walked with you.
I guess you didn’t really care either.
We were there.
I’m alive at the festival, more than I am any other time. I’m alive in the carnivalesque, when the circus performers fly high and the men and women scream in excstacy, and when the world is coming unhinged and laughing its head off. When everyone is just a mirror masked inside one another – that’s when I’m most alive. That’s when I’m most…willing to be myself.
I finally got the ticket for the carnival of life…couldnt ride the rides alone and no one seemed right for the rides. finally found it. waited in line a year..about to step onto the platform and the ride closed…liver failure
boobies
some else just had this word. It makes me feel like I have been cheated. Like instead of this being original or picking a different word for each person, instead you decide to pick the same word. I guess that gives everyone a chance to give their perspective on the word, but somehow I feel it ruins it for me. Okay, carnival, I envision rides, laughter, popcorn, cotton candy, and the feeling of summer passing in the breeze.
Regina
Running away, he knew not where his mind would take him. He knew exactly where he was coming from and to be honest he truly enjoyed it there. It’s just that he could never escape the idea that he was stuck in the monotony of the everyday never to escape this world. He needed something new, something brighter. A carnival all to his own.
So many connotations attached to “carnivals” – fun, freakish, delightful, deviant – I suppose like anything else it is in the eye of the beholder. I do like the show, but I don’t like to think about what lies below. Under the sequins and glitter, beneath the carefully orchestrated facades, I’m sure lurk personal demons of one sort or another. I try not to see them, but I have eyes like anyone else. And I sometimes fumble with my blinders. Therefore I find the word to be bittersweet.
clowns, toys, rides, money, riding a rollar coaster. the one time that i tried to win a prize at a carnival game and lost sixty dollars. lesson learned. Still want to win that damn stuffed animal. Riding a ride with a boyfriend, being able to run around with friends. good memories
Kaitlin
It was the way the big top looked that captivated her imagination. The soul, the very heart of the carnival, set up inside, with the white and black ponies marching to a beat that no one else could hear. She had seen them run wild before, but to a hand gentler than her own, they came tame.
Painted faces go in and out. Bodies with contorted faces coming to my bed and leaving, each one on my body like a two-bit carnival ride. I do not know who the operator is.
Catherine
i used to love the carnival. every summer i would go on the last day and ride the ferris wheel with my best friend. he and i would wish to get to the top everytime. we never did. the final summer we went together, the summer before college, we rode it one last time. we wished and wished and finally…we made it…we made it to the top. we knew this would be our last night together for a while…and when we finally reached the top, he kissed me and that was that…our final night together….our final night at the carnival….
Truthfully, I don’t know much about carnivals. I’ve never actually been to one. I suppose there’s always that image that comes to mind about some bright lighted place filled with laughs and attractions, but I know better than to treat it so innocently. It would be nice to go to a carnival some time though; I doubt I’d take many of the more stimulating rides, but it would be a nice experience.
Alan Fournier
The street is awash with all the flavors and mixtures of humanity that one could ever imagine. I stroll along, carefully examining my fellow revelers, enjoying the sounds of their laughter, quiet moments caught in darkened corners, and the stolen kisses I look in on.
Nikki
How is this different from the festival? The festival is a firestorm sweeping the street, and the carnival is a traveling slum. If you like mutants and germs, though, this is right up your alley.
As they left the farmstead with its barn blazing everyone in the van was whooping and hollering as if they’d just arrived at a carnival. But carnival was the last thing on Jensen’s mind. He was thinking of HOME.
I got a bloody nose
On a tilty ride at the lobster fest one year
The lady who held a tissue tight
Against my face, gasped
As an alien creature of red escaped from my nostril
And lay, gooey and life like
In the palm of her kleenex covered hand
ellie griffith
The carnival. The haunting houses, the careless carousels, the laughing lunatics. Let’s go to the carnival and get caught up in their bags of tricks. Something to believe in, or simply pass the time. Let’s go to the carnival and slowly lose our minds.
The carnival was everything she had hoped it would be. The lights, the laughter, the rides, the fun, the goofy faces, the cotton candy…the company.
She felt her hand being squeezed by his and her heart clenched almost painfully with excitement. She made a list, quickly!, in her head of all the romantic things that she wanted to do. All the carnival cliches she watched in the romantic movies… sharing the cotton candy… riding the ferris wheel and having it stop right at the top… him winning her a stuffed bear…
She could hardly wait.
elinmacrae
I don’t like the danger, the noise, the feathers, the wobbling of flesh or the spending of money by people who don’t have much
Kim
Ha! I went to a carnival when I was a child with my parents. I will never forget this particular carnival because it was the first time I ever saw a dead person. He got shot out in the parking lot, and we tried to go past where it happened not knowing that it had occurred. We were trying to get to our car. It really freaked me out. It didn’t keep me from going to more carnivals through life, though. Just a weird thing that happened.
JudyB
Lights shimmered and popped, people milled around, and I stood alone. A carnival is no great place to be a single soul but there I was, watching you have a good time. I watched you eat a turkey leg and buy her an ice cream. I watched you put your arm around her waist and kiss her lips. I saw you see me, then I walked away, through the front entrance.
As I stare at the festivities surrounding me, I wonder what I had ever liked about these fake celebrations. What aspect of carnmivals are so delightfully enticing to children? The antique horses, with their shiny paint chipping off? The cotton candy booths, with loud vendors who display bright smiles? What is it about carnivals that brings hordes of people to these noisy, crowded events? The rigged games that each child has their heart set on winning? The stuffed animals that are being given away on each corner? Or is it simply a sense of belonging, a way to escape reality and blend in with happiness and cheery fun as the constellations hang above the sky? Is it a place to let your hopes soar? Are they certain that their gloomy personalities will transform into optimistic, fun loving bundles of smiles for the two hours they attend this show? Are carnivals popular for the security they provide, for the short escape they are?
At the Carnival there was a series of grotesques on display. Disfigured giant men with club feet. Women with beards. Midgets without any limbs. A spectacle asking nothing more than a morbid curiosity and the exchange of a flat, shiny nickel.
AfterMath
carnival
fun and games – but clownly sick.
sucky sicky sweet
not my style
unreal
clowns and garishness
noise
fake not natural
go away
The garish colors of the big top surprise me as I stare in wonder at the beautiful, majestic sight in front of me. The festive, celebratory way people are dancing tells me that this is no pity party. Shedding everything that has happened to me tonight, I step out in the middle of the dance floor and shake to the beat. A spicy, tangy song is playing over the speakers, and while this is unlike any carnival I have ever seen before, it is by far the best. Under the big top, I smile at the starry constellations above as I shake my hips and try to forget the horrible experiencies I have lived through tonight. Yes, this is truly a carnival.
Icy Sweetness
The carnival was full of sights and sounds Sofia had never seen of heard before- the neighing of horses and elephants, the squeal of pigs, the smell of roasted foods and the music that was drifting lazily through the air.
Rani
Carnival – Venice? I guess that is where I’d go if I were celebrating Carnival…it must be a fantastic place at that time…Renaissance costumes, elaborate masks, intrigue. But what else goes on? What kinds of parties? Is there dancing? Traditional songs? I know nothing of Carnival save the beautiful masks that are designed and devised year around in Venice.
Micki St. Sauver
ferris wheels under glittering lights strung over horses with chipped paint surrounded by clowns on stilts entertaining a little girl with pink cotton candy who is with her mother on her birthday.
Sarah
Red and white and twirling tops. Giggles and hollers and soda pop. Cotton candy and cracker jacks. The bearded lady and the trapeze act.
A.J. Cread
“Did you hear about the carnival in town?” Jason asked. I shrugged and shook my head. Carnival? It’s been decades since I’ve been to one. He smiled and grabbed my hand, squeezing it in that familiar way. “Come on, let’s go.”
And of course, I went. He did that crooked grin that I fell for. It was odd, but the nostalgic feeling sent me into a hysteric case of longing. He kissed me. The weight was lifted off my shoulders. The carnival was overall the best thing I’ve been to, yet.
Hannah
What is it with these words? The other day it was “festival”, today “carnival”. Aren’t they fundamentally the same? It’s not particularly inspiring for me, it creates the same mental images as festival did. I suppose for some people there’s always the chance that one word will hit a nerve that the other won’t, but still. Frustrating.
Carnivals are swampy places. Vermin and salt and sweat. I’ve never actually been to a carnival, so this may only be a bad reputation. Unless you count the time I worked at a carnival, of course. A slick commercial carnival, perhaps.
Today has been one MF of a carnival. I’d rather not talk about it. (the shame)
Carnival of carnage in these halls…..the proverbial gore of a thousand college students’ brains lay scattered in the annals of test failures and flopped pop quizzes. I think I can still see my spirit floating above that classroom, hovering, expectant for eternity, yearning to understand the lesson once and for all!
Carnival is just like a festival. Almost. It reminds me of Mardi Gras, New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina. What a dark transition. What does that say about me, that thinking of a festival would inspire me to remember an awful disaster.
this is a fun exciting event that u can go to see and play really fun games. i think this is the best thing for fundraisers and also for just fun. the state also does a fair but that is not a carnival.
You wear your expressions like they are as exchangable as carnival masks–easily supplied and just as easily replaced in the blink of an eye.
disgustingly unhealthy food. dizzying low-level intelligence. ear harmfully loud music. rides that almost make me vomit as bad as the sight of pitiful patriotic people who surround me everywhere when i’m there.
–
i f*cking hate carnivals. that’s all i want to say.
rides that almost make me vomit worse than the sight of pitiful patriotic people. disgustingly unhealthy food. dizzying low-level intelligence. ear harmfully loud music.
–
i fucking hate carnivals. that’s all i want to say.
“Cotton candy?” Her eyes were wider than the first-place trophy on the cake table. “A whole cone, all for myself?”
The man in black swallowed hard, working to keep his temper under control as he favored the little imp with what he hoped was a normal smile. “Yes, a whole one. You can have two, if you want.”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely positive. I won’t go broke from buying two cones of cotton candy.”
The smile wavered and her grip on his sleeve tightened. “T-thank you…Da.”
“You’re more than welcome, brat.” He said. The smile was fond this time. He’d buy her a thousand cones of cotton candy if she asked. Anything, anything at all to make up for the years lost between them. The next idiot to stand between him and his daughter would be eating out of a straw.
She smiled.
His world melted.
I went to a carnival with you
and you gave me a teddy bear
but I wouldn’t let you give it to me
because you deserve something too,
like some popcorn or cotton candy,
but instead I just took the bear
and walked with you.
I guess you didn’t really care either.
We were there.
I’m alive at the festival, more than I am any other time. I’m alive in the carnivalesque, when the circus performers fly high and the men and women scream in excstacy, and when the world is coming unhinged and laughing its head off. When everyone is just a mirror masked inside one another – that’s when I’m most alive. That’s when I’m most…willing to be myself.
I finally got the ticket for the carnival of life…couldnt ride the rides alone and no one seemed right for the rides. finally found it. waited in line a year..about to step onto the platform and the ride closed…liver failure
some else just had this word. It makes me feel like I have been cheated. Like instead of this being original or picking a different word for each person, instead you decide to pick the same word. I guess that gives everyone a chance to give their perspective on the word, but somehow I feel it ruins it for me. Okay, carnival, I envision rides, laughter, popcorn, cotton candy, and the feeling of summer passing in the breeze.
Running away, he knew not where his mind would take him. He knew exactly where he was coming from and to be honest he truly enjoyed it there. It’s just that he could never escape the idea that he was stuck in the monotony of the everyday never to escape this world. He needed something new, something brighter. A carnival all to his own.
So many connotations attached to “carnivals” – fun, freakish, delightful, deviant – I suppose like anything else it is in the eye of the beholder. I do like the show, but I don’t like to think about what lies below. Under the sequins and glitter, beneath the carefully orchestrated facades, I’m sure lurk personal demons of one sort or another. I try not to see them, but I have eyes like anyone else. And I sometimes fumble with my blinders. Therefore I find the word to be bittersweet.
clowns, toys, rides, money, riding a rollar coaster. the one time that i tried to win a prize at a carnival game and lost sixty dollars. lesson learned. Still want to win that damn stuffed animal. Riding a ride with a boyfriend, being able to run around with friends. good memories
It was the way the big top looked that captivated her imagination. The soul, the very heart of the carnival, set up inside, with the white and black ponies marching to a beat that no one else could hear. She had seen them run wild before, but to a hand gentler than her own, they came tame.
Painted faces go in and out. Bodies with contorted faces coming to my bed and leaving, each one on my body like a two-bit carnival ride. I do not know who the operator is.
i used to love the carnival. every summer i would go on the last day and ride the ferris wheel with my best friend. he and i would wish to get to the top everytime. we never did. the final summer we went together, the summer before college, we rode it one last time. we wished and wished and finally…we made it…we made it to the top. we knew this would be our last night together for a while…and when we finally reached the top, he kissed me and that was that…our final night together….our final night at the carnival….
Truthfully, I don’t know much about carnivals. I’ve never actually been to one. I suppose there’s always that image that comes to mind about some bright lighted place filled with laughs and attractions, but I know better than to treat it so innocently. It would be nice to go to a carnival some time though; I doubt I’d take many of the more stimulating rides, but it would be a nice experience.
The street is awash with all the flavors and mixtures of humanity that one could ever imagine. I stroll along, carefully examining my fellow revelers, enjoying the sounds of their laughter, quiet moments caught in darkened corners, and the stolen kisses I look in on.
How is this different from the festival? The festival is a firestorm sweeping the street, and the carnival is a traveling slum. If you like mutants and germs, though, this is right up your alley.
As they left the farmstead with its barn blazing everyone in the van was whooping and hollering as if they’d just arrived at a carnival. But carnival was the last thing on Jensen’s mind. He was thinking of HOME.
I got a bloody nose
On a tilty ride at the lobster fest one year
The lady who held a tissue tight
Against my face, gasped
As an alien creature of red escaped from my nostril
And lay, gooey and life like
In the palm of her kleenex covered hand
The carnival. The haunting houses, the careless carousels, the laughing lunatics. Let’s go to the carnival and get caught up in their bags of tricks. Something to believe in, or simply pass the time. Let’s go to the carnival and slowly lose our minds.
The carnival was everything she had hoped it would be. The lights, the laughter, the rides, the fun, the goofy faces, the cotton candy…the company.
She felt her hand being squeezed by his and her heart clenched almost painfully with excitement. She made a list, quickly!, in her head of all the romantic things that she wanted to do. All the carnival cliches she watched in the romantic movies… sharing the cotton candy… riding the ferris wheel and having it stop right at the top… him winning her a stuffed bear…
She could hardly wait.
I don’t like the danger, the noise, the feathers, the wobbling of flesh or the spending of money by people who don’t have much
Ha! I went to a carnival when I was a child with my parents. I will never forget this particular carnival because it was the first time I ever saw a dead person. He got shot out in the parking lot, and we tried to go past where it happened not knowing that it had occurred. We were trying to get to our car. It really freaked me out. It didn’t keep me from going to more carnivals through life, though. Just a weird thing that happened.
Lights shimmered and popped, people milled around, and I stood alone. A carnival is no great place to be a single soul but there I was, watching you have a good time. I watched you eat a turkey leg and buy her an ice cream. I watched you put your arm around her waist and kiss her lips. I saw you see me, then I walked away, through the front entrance.
You will never see me again.
As I stare at the festivities surrounding me, I wonder what I had ever liked about these fake celebrations. What aspect of carnmivals are so delightfully enticing to children? The antique horses, with their shiny paint chipping off? The cotton candy booths, with loud vendors who display bright smiles? What is it about carnivals that brings hordes of people to these noisy, crowded events? The rigged games that each child has their heart set on winning? The stuffed animals that are being given away on each corner? Or is it simply a sense of belonging, a way to escape reality and blend in with happiness and cheery fun as the constellations hang above the sky? Is it a place to let your hopes soar? Are they certain that their gloomy personalities will transform into optimistic, fun loving bundles of smiles for the two hours they attend this show? Are carnivals popular for the security they provide, for the short escape they are?
At the Carnival there was a series of grotesques on display. Disfigured giant men with club feet. Women with beards. Midgets without any limbs. A spectacle asking nothing more than a morbid curiosity and the exchange of a flat, shiny nickel.
carnival
fun and games – but clownly sick.
sucky sicky sweet
not my style
unreal
clowns and garishness
noise
fake not natural
go away
The garish colors of the big top surprise me as I stare in wonder at the beautiful, majestic sight in front of me. The festive, celebratory way people are dancing tells me that this is no pity party. Shedding everything that has happened to me tonight, I step out in the middle of the dance floor and shake to the beat. A spicy, tangy song is playing over the speakers, and while this is unlike any carnival I have ever seen before, it is by far the best. Under the big top, I smile at the starry constellations above as I shake my hips and try to forget the horrible experiencies I have lived through tonight. Yes, this is truly a carnival.
The carnival was full of sights and sounds Sofia had never seen of heard before- the neighing of horses and elephants, the squeal of pigs, the smell of roasted foods and the music that was drifting lazily through the air.
Carnival – Venice? I guess that is where I’d go if I were celebrating Carnival…it must be a fantastic place at that time…Renaissance costumes, elaborate masks, intrigue. But what else goes on? What kinds of parties? Is there dancing? Traditional songs? I know nothing of Carnival save the beautiful masks that are designed and devised year around in Venice.
ferris wheels under glittering lights strung over horses with chipped paint surrounded by clowns on stilts entertaining a little girl with pink cotton candy who is with her mother on her birthday.
Red and white and twirling tops. Giggles and hollers and soda pop. Cotton candy and cracker jacks. The bearded lady and the trapeze act.
“Did you hear about the carnival in town?” Jason asked. I shrugged and shook my head. Carnival? It’s been decades since I’ve been to one. He smiled and grabbed my hand, squeezing it in that familiar way. “Come on, let’s go.”
And of course, I went. He did that crooked grin that I fell for. It was odd, but the nostalgic feeling sent me into a hysteric case of longing. He kissed me. The weight was lifted off my shoulders. The carnival was overall the best thing I’ve been to, yet.
What is it with these words? The other day it was “festival”, today “carnival”. Aren’t they fundamentally the same? It’s not particularly inspiring for me, it creates the same mental images as festival did. I suppose for some people there’s always the chance that one word will hit a nerve that the other won’t, but still. Frustrating.
There once was a dumb silly boy who believed anything. He went to the carnival that was in town one day and then he died. The end.