Page 29 - ARUBA TODAY

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PEOPLE & ARTS Friday 16 June 2017
Wallenda hangs by teeth from helicopter over Niagara Falls

By CAROLYN THOMPSON stunt broke a height record
Associated Press Nik Wallenda set in 2011
NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. (AP) when he hung by his teeth
— Erendira Wallenda, the 250 feet (76 meters) above
aerialist wife of daredevil Silver Dollar City in Branson,
Nik Wallenda, successfully Missouri.
hung by her teeth from a Erendira Wallenda said
helicopter over Niagara she was caught off guard
Falls on Thursday, pulling off by the windy conditions
the stunt five years to the above the cataracts,
day her husband walked a something her husband
tight rope over the falls. had to deal with during his
The 36-year-old mother of 2012 stunt.
three was tethered to a “I respect this man so much
hoop suspended from a more because it was way
helicopter 300 feet (91 me- more windy than I thought
ters) above the water. it would be,” she said.
With the mist from the falls Helicopter pilot Paul Barth
as a backdrop, Wallenda said Wallenda signaled to
worked herself into a series him to fly higher during the
of dramatic poses, waving routine to get away from
her arms as she dangled the wind.
by her knees and toes and “She was trying to get up Erendira Wallenda performs a series of acrobatic maneuvers, including hanging by her teeth,
doing handstands and above the turbulence,” while suspended from a helicopter above Niagara Falls in Niagara Falls, N.Y., Thursday, June 15,
splits. She hung twice by said Barth of Palm Beach, 2017. Associated Press
her teeth with the use of a Florida, who has worked
mouth guard. before with the Wallendas. it. It’s kind of dangerous but on a weekday, Erendira come before,” said Randy
About 200 people watched “It billows up as you can tell it’s beautiful in the same Wallenda’s stunt drew no- Bradt, the county legisla-
on shore at Niagara Falls by the spray.” way,” she said. where near the shoulder- ture’s majority leader. “I re-
State Park, many with cell- The aerialist spent about County and city officials to-shoulder crowds of her ally believe the rate of re-
phones aloft to capture eight minutes of the 10-min- who helped finance the husband’s 2012 prime-time turn on our investment will
photos and video of Wal- ute stunt hovering over the stunt hope people watch- high wire walk. Legislators be tenfold for us.”
lenda, who appeared as a falls. ing news coverage will feel and the Wallendas said the The Wallendas have talked
graceful silhouette against Afterward, she and her hus- the same pull. The city and payoff would come later, about opening a Wallen-
the clouds. band spoke of the attrac- Niagara County Legislature with the spread of photos da-themed entertainment
“There are no words. It was tion of the falls, which has each committed $35,000 and video from the stunt. complex in Niagara Falls
beautiful,” she said after- long attracted daredevils. to the stunt with the goal of “It’s generating the aware- for several years, but there
ward. “There’s something almost boosting tourism. ness, getting people here, has been little, if any, pub-
The Wallendas said the magical that draws you to Scheduled for 8:30 a.m. people who wouldn’t have lic progress. q
Roxane Gay’s memoir of living in a large body

By ANN LEVIN emotional breakdown in and recursive, it propels
Associated Press college and the “lost years” the reader forward with
At her heaviest, Roxane of her 20s when “I spent unstoppable force even
Gay weighed 577 pounds. most of my waking hours though we know there
In her powerful, at times online, talking to strangers.” will be no conventionally
harrowing, new memoir, There she finds forums for happy ending.“This is not
“Hunger,” Gay explains rape and sexual abuse a weight-loss memoir,”
how she got that way survivors, as well as chat- she warns readers at the
and what it’s like to live rooms for people into BDSM outset. “I don’t have any
“trapped in a cage” of her (bondage, submission and powerful insight into what
own making. sadomasochism). it takes to overcome an
It’s the story of a “carefree Next comes a series of unruly body and unruly ap-
young girl ... who felt safe dead-end jobs, a return petites.” What she has is in-
in her body” until she was to school and eventual sight aplenty about culture
“gang-raped by a boy success as a writer.While and society, particularly
I thought I loved and a sketching the broad out- the medical establishment,
group of his friends.” Then lines of her life, Gay, who which she blasts for treat-
she “ate and ate and ate is now in her early 40s, also ing fatness as pathological,
to build my body into a for- delivers a fierce polemic and the fashion/entertain-
tress,” which comforted her about what it means to live ment industry, which rakes
in the moment but failed in a morbidly obese black in big bucks by making
to address “this cavern of body in a society that wor- women feel insecure about
loneliness inside me that I ships thinness, whiteness their looks.“Does anyone
have spent my whole life and fitness, especially for feel comfortable in their
trying to fill.”On one level women.A novelist, cultural bodies?” she muses at the
“Hunger” is a straight-up critic and professor best end. “Glossy magazines
memoir, the story of a shy, known for the 2014 es- lead me to believe that
studious girl, the beloved say collection “Bad Femi- this is a rare experience,
daughter of Haitian immi- nist,” Gay has a vivid, tele- indeed. ... Every woman This book cover image released by Harper shows “Hunger,” a
grants, who endures a hu- graphic writing style, which I know is on a perpetual memoir by Roxane Gay
miliating adolescence, an serves her well. Repetitive diet.”q Associated Press