The Great Rondini

Amazing and often intimidating his audiences, The Great Rondini escapes from his chains and straitjacket night after night at the Key West Mallory Square Sunset Celebration.

If you go to Key West, you have to see The Great Rondini.  A magician, escape artist, and extremely caustic comic, Rondini specializes in zeroing in on people and making them squirm to the delight of the crowd….he remarked to my husband how nice it must be to get off the tractor for a while.  He told me if I didn’t move 3 steps closer, he would tell more race jokes.  I backed up 3 steps.

This year, though, we saw right through Rondini.  Listen, this guy’s prep is a thing of beauty.  Selected ‘audience members’ (all so authentic) buckle him up in his straitjacket, wrap him in chains, snap on locks, and mop his brow.  In past years, he would then be hoisted up by his ankles to start his escape hanging upside down.  Not so this year – maybe age has caught up with him.

So we watch – as intent as ever.  But because he’s not hanging upside down, it’s easier to figure out how he escapes.  He basically makes himself large when all the gear is strapped on, and shrinks to escape, going through all manner of gyrations to boost the crowd’s appreciation of his terrible predicament.

The writhing and cursing, struggling and bending, the exhortations to the crowd to be more enthusiastic and louder, and the studied pauses to tell more race/gay/Key West/tourist/hick jokes — it makes for a mesmerizing package.

First, he shrugs off the chains, then twists his arms inside the straitjacket until he can stand on his head and shrug it off as well.  He’s free!  The Great Rondini.    Even though I could see clearly how it was done, I still appreciated his showmanship, his wicked humor, and, maybe, his thumbing his nose at the world longevity.

Anyway, so what would this possibly have to do with planning or grantwriting?  Oh, you know I would have to find little lessons in this.  Well, here they are:

1. We give the Rondinis of the world too much credit because we get so caught up in their theater we don’t get the trick.
2. Almost everything about planning, research, grantwriting, group facilitation is about making the complex simple.
3. There is something to the notion of blue smoke and mirrors and it ain’t just for street performers.  It’s both a tool and a weapon.  But you have to be really good at it either way.

I really like The Great Rondini.  He’s a piece of work.  I admire that.