You can get anything on Ebay

I spotted the following advert the other day.

Example Advert


Although I could not actually find anybody selling human fleas on Ebay, there is something in their terms and conditions that would let you sell them. It's possible to sell "hatching eggs" on ebay provided you only offer domestic postage. Your only problem then would be to find someone who is willing to transport them, I'd expect that having the fleas hatch out in transit would lead to disaster. Perhaps best to ask people to collect.

Flea Circus Review

Naomi Guss from the puppet making company "Sticky Apple Legs" in Melborne visted the Unima show the other weekend. She provided a handy report on Allenby's Famous Flea Circus, highlighting the problems that a flea circus performer might have.

Merelefest - Alberti Fleas

MerleFest 2008, presented by Lowe’s, will feature artists from a variety of styles and genres to celebrate the music of Doc and Merle Watson for the 21st year. Once again Doc Watson will host the four-day festival to be held on the campus of Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro, NC on April 24-27, 2008.

The Alberti Flea Circus will be performing

http://www.merlefest.org/MerleFestCMS/Content.aspx?id=1474

Booth for Performing Fleas - £1

9ft Square Booth for Performing Fleas, with Two Grand Oil Paintings for same, price £1

This advert from was from a theatrical periodical Era Newspaper in January 1893 from a "TOM NORMAN, Silver King, Pearce's Temperance Hotel, Elephant and Castle, SE". Tom was selling up his fair equipment to allow him to travel to Chicago, USA, presumably to join up with the Worlds Fair that was there at the time. Tom Norman was quoted in his autobiography as saying "you could indeed exhibit anything in those days. Yes anything from a needle to an anchor, a flea to an elephant, a bloater you could exhibit as a whale. It was not the show; it was the tale that you told.". Nothing is currently known about the flea circus act or who bought the booth.

Read more about Tom Norman at the National Fairground Archive University of Shefield

Fleas down under this weekend

"On Sunday April 6th from 10am – 4pm, the UNIMA 2008 Carnival Day bursts into life with a dazzling line up of FREE performances, workshops, exhibitions, surprise entertainment and the official Million Puppet Project Guinness World Record for The World’s Largest Puppet Display!
Featuring 7 stages, over 32 International, Australian and roaming puppetry performances, 50 puppeteers, and an 8 metre shark from Esperance – Carnival Day has something for the whole family!
Celebrate and enjoy a day of discovery as you wander through Swerve’s landscape of transforming balgas, Trojan kangaroos, tinkers on boab bicycles and giant creatures from the sea. Welcome The Puppet Caravan performers who have travelled more than 5000 kilometres across Australia’s vast landscape to spread the puppet love or marvel at Allenby’s miniature flea circus."

http://unimaaustralia.typepad.com/unima_australia/2008/02/carnival-day-at.html

Flea Art

There's a lot of people creating flea and flea circus related art. Here's one of my favourite recent finds, a chinese flea house. Hopefully I'll be able to collate enough works to have a Flea Circus Art page on the research library.

http://pot-aux-roses.blogspot.com/2008/02/illustration-friday-leap.html

Flea Circus on the Internet

Due to a problem roughly equivalent to me not paying the bill, the Flea Circus Research Library site has been offline for the first couple of days of April. Sorry to anyone inconvenienced by that.

There's some good news however, the site should be back online shortly and has made it into the online directory DMOZ under the category "Science: Biology: Flora and Fauna: Animalia: Arthropoda: Insecta: Fleas". This should mean that more people find the site and hence I get sent more useful information to put on it.