Read this provocative query over at Notes of a Neophyte: “Where is there room for play in the academy?”

Then, in the comments, several references to the blogger Squadratomagico who was characterized as an icon for balancing the burdens of academia with the play of the circus. And, I thought, “the circus” — what a great metaphor for how we need to integrate an aspect of creativity, community, subversion, inversion, and insanity into our ordered lives! I was really taken with the richness of this image — the circus of possibilty.

Then, I clicked over onto Squadratomagico’s blog only to discover: it ain’t a metaphor! She’s really in a circus! So now I have to second Neophyte’s nomination of Squadratomagico as a hero to us all. I am completely inspired.

Where’s the circus when you’re in the mood to run away from it all?