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A man whose usual job involves setting up big tops at music festivals is preparing to run the world's most southerly post office in Antarctica.

Around 20 jugglers, trapeze artists and concession stand workers are filtering into the big top that the majestic Circus Vargas uses to perform across 25 California cities 11 months out of the year.

Out my window, I watch us rise higher and higher above Jackson; over the coliseum with its big top, the skyscrapers, the governor’s mansion, and churches downtown; the busy interstate, the sleepy suburbs.

The whole Republican convention, always a circus show of pretense and populism, will more accurately resemble a hallucinogenic Barnum and Bailey event under the big top – or even more precisely Mad Max under the Thunderdome.

From there she could see the second hole, which was designed like a circus big top, and the edge of the third, which was ringed by enormous lollipops.