Seaside Heights. October 12, 2015. Paul Goldfinger photo. Click once to grab the brass ring and enlarge the photo.
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger (Re-posted 2026 from October 2015)
This carousel horse, photographed after the season in Seaside Heights, reminds me of Broadway—sometimes happy and sometimes sad. I’m thinking of the show Carousel which proclaims, “June is busting out all over.”
The Fantasticks has a song called “Round and Round” which begins as a gorgeous fantasy—-“Life is a colorful carousel,” but later the song becomes dark, sad, and scary.
However, for the most part, Broadway brings us joy as in “Oh What a Beautiful Morning” from Oklahoma.
I see this carousel, devoid of riders and seemingly sad because the season is over, and yet the scene, like a Broadway set, is bursting with vivid colors and, in a way, with memories of life itself.
So, in wondering about this photograph and how to see it, I decided that it is joyful and not sad, and if the horse could talk he would say, ” Please sir, I want more oats” (sorry for the Oliver joke, such as it is.) I wonder how a child would view it.
And certainly now, in 2021, with Broadway (and even the London stage) mostly dark for an indefinite period of time, we will have to wait to experience the joy of the musical stage.
Of course, we can still hear the music. We try to keep that music alive on Blogfinger. It’s easy to forget, but we won’t. (Thanks Mom!)
Here is MIMI HINES from a show called “The Roar of the Greasepaint—the Smell of the Crowd.” It is a happy song full of the sort of vivid optimism that we often find in Broadway musicals and, sometimes, in life.
