Stilt People

Okay, somethings been nagging at me since I attended the Fair last Thursday.  One of the "attractions" there was a stilt walker named Libby Green.  Libby's publicity sheet says that not only is she one of the country's premier stilt performers, she also is a "balloonist" and a magician.  I'm not exactly certain what she means by "balloonist". Does this mean that she makes  balloon animals or does she fly a hot air balloon?  If she flew a hot air balloon while wearing stilts, that would be pretty awesome, but I'll bet that's not it.  The same thing goes for magician.  Does she lose the stilts for her magic act, or does she have them on?  This would make the card tricks pretty easy to do, because she would be so far up there, you wouldn't really be able to see if your card was the three of spades or not.

As you can see from the above picture, Libby apparently does Halloween gigs too.  I wonder what that act is like?  It looks like she's sort of dressed up like a Bride of Frankenstein/Lizzy Borden crossover, which could be interesting.  I'm going to bet she also dresses up like Uncle Sam, because most of the stilt walkers you see are wearing Uncle Sam costumes.  Must be tradition or something.

Anyway, the thing that I was wondering is what happens if she loses her balance and falls?  Those stilts have to be tied to her feet and legs, so if she falls, she just can't hit a switch and explosive bolts detonate, separating her from her lengthy prostheses.  I mean she's got to go down hard ... and the results can't be pretty.

When I saw her, she was just standing there, in a pair of really long jeans.  She looked kind of lonely actually, because I don't imagine people just walk up to her and start a conversation.  I was going to go over and talk to her and ask about the falling thing, plus I was going to ask her if anyone ever tried to push her over or knock her legs out from under her.  And I was also going to ask her if she had ever had a fantasy about having sex while wearing her stilts ... and maybe I would have if I had visited the beer tent first, but I chickened out.

Now I'll never know.