Secrets of the Sideshows

Secrets of the Sideshows
Author: Joe Nickell
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 434
Release: 2005-09-09
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780813123585

"Joe Nickell - once a carnival pitchman, then a magician, private detective, and investigative writer - has pursued sideshow secrets for years and has worked the famous carnival midway at the Canadian National Exhibition. For this book, he interviewed showmen and performers, collected carnival memorabilia, researched published accounts of sideshows and their lore, and even performed some classic sideshow feats, such as eating fire and lying on a bed of nails as a cinderblock was broken on his chest. The result of these varied efforts, Secrets of the Sideshows tells the captivating story of the magic, tricks - real or illusory - and performers of the world's midway shows."--BOOK JACKET.

Side Show

Side Show
Author: Henry Krieger
Publisher: Samuel French, Inc.
Total Pages: 120
Release: 1999
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 9780573651410

Based on the true story of siamese twins Violet and Daisy Hilton who became stars during the Depression, Side Show is a moving portrait of 2 women joined at the hip. Whose extraordinary bondage brings them fame but denies them love.

American Sideshow

American Sideshow
Author: Marc Hartzman
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2006-09-21
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 9781585425303

A fascinating look into the history of the American sideshow and its performers. Learn what's real, what's fake, and what's just downright bizarre. You've probably heard of Tom Thumb. The Elephant Man. Perhaps even Chang and Eng, the original Siamese twins. But what about Eli Bowen, the legless acrobat? Or Prince Randian, the human torso? These were just a few of the many stars that shone during the heyday of the American sideshow, from 1840 to 1950. American Sideshow chronicles the lives of truly amazing performers, examining these brave and extraordinary curiosities not just as sideshow performers but as people, delving into the lives they led and the ways they were able to triumph over and even benefit from their abnormalities. American Sideshow discusses the rise and fall of the original sideshows and their subsequent replacement by today's self-made freaks. With the progress of modern medicine, technological advancements, and the wonderful world of body modification, abnormalities are being overcome, treated and even prevented: Siamese twins can now be separated, and in addition to this, tongues can be forked, horns surgically implanted, and earlobes removed. There are also, of course, modern-day giants, fire eaters, sword swallowers, glass eaters, human blockheads, and oh, so much more. These fascinating personalities are celebrated through intimate biographies paired with stunning photographs. Approximately two hundred performers from the past one hundred and sixty years are featured, giving readers a comprehensive and sometimes astonishing look into the history of the American sideshow

Side-Show Siren

Side-Show Siren
Author: Edward D Wood Jr
Publisher: Independently Published
Total Pages: 202
Release: 1966-10-12
Genre:
ISBN: 9781071149058

When Karl the Abominable Snowman escapes from a carnival, a series of gruesome murders ensues.

The Strange Case of Dr. Couney

The Strange Case of Dr. Couney
Author: Dawn Raffel
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2019-09-10
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1524744964

“A mosaic mystery told in vignettes, cliffhangers, curious asides, and some surreal plot twists as Raffel investigates the secrets of the man who changed infant care in America.”—NPR, 2018's Great Reads What kind of doctor puts his patients on display? This is the spellbinding tale of a mysterious Coney Island doctor who revolutionized neonatal care more than one hundred years ago and saved some seven thousand babies. Dr. Martin Couney's story is a kaleidoscopic ride through the intersection of ebullient entrepreneurship, enlightened pediatric care, and the wild culture of world's fairs at the beginning of the American Century. As Dawn Raffel recounts, Dr. Couney used incubators and careful nursing to keep previously doomed infants alive, while displaying these babies alongside sword swallowers, bearded ladies, and burlesque shows at Coney Island, Atlantic City, and venues across the nation. How this turn-of-the-twentieth-century émigré became the savior to families with premature infants—known then as “weaklings”—as he ignored the scorn of the medical establishment and fought the rising popularity of eugenics is one of the most astounding stories of modern medicine. Dr. Couney, for all his entrepreneurial gusto, is a surprisingly appealing character, someone who genuinely cared for the well-being of his tiny patients. But he had something to hide... Drawing on historical documents, original reportage, and interviews with surviving patients, Dawn Raffel tells the marvelously eccentric story of Couney's mysterious carnival career, his larger-than-life personality, and his unprecedented success as the savior of the fragile wonders that are tiny, tiny babies. A New York Times Book Review New & Noteworthy Title A Real Simple Best Book of 2018 Christopher Award-winner

A History of Japanese Theatre

A History of Japanese Theatre
Author: Jonah Salz
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 1066
Release: 2016-07-14
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 1316395324

Japan boasts one of the world's oldest, most vibrant and most influential performance traditions. This accessible and complete history provides a comprehensive overview of Japanese theatre and its continuing global influence. Written by eminent international scholars, it spans the full range of dance-theatre genres over the past fifteen hundred years, including noh theatre, bunraku puppet theatre, kabuki theatre, shingeki modern theatre, rakugo storytelling, vanguard butoh dance and media experimentation. The first part addresses traditional genres, their historical trajectories and performance conventions. Part II covers the spectrum of new genres since Meiji (1868–), and Parts III to VI provide discussions of playwriting, architecture, Shakespeare, and interculturalism, situating Japanese elements within their global theatrical context. Beautifully illustrated with photographs and prints, this history features interviews with key modern directors, an overview of historical scholarship in English and Japanese, and a timeline. A further reading list covers a range of multimedia resources to encourage further explorations.

The Last Sideshow

The Last Sideshow
Author: Hanspeter Schneider
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2004
Genre: Abnormalities, Human
ISBN: 9781904688020

As an internationally acclaimed fashion photographer Hanspeter Schneider's professional life focuses on the artifice of beauty, so it's natural for him to challenge surface assumptions about model humans. For this collection he has chronicled an American community of travelling circus performers and found himself charmed and enlightened. His empathy with his old and often unusual subjects shines through the portraits as the circus folk present themselves to the camera as open books of humour, dignity and vivacity.

On the Other Side of Freedom

On the Other Side of Freedom
Author: DeRay Mckesson
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2019-09-03
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0525560572

"Hope and insight and empathy spring from every page. . . . [McKesson] stares down the faces of bigotry and unfreedom and cynicism and doesn't flinch in writing out our marching orders toward freedom." --Ibram X. Kendi, #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist From the internationally recognized civil rights activist/organizer and host of the podcast Pod Save the People, a meditation on resistance, justice, and freedom, and an intimate portrait of a movement from the front lines. In August 2014, twenty-nine-year-old activist DeRay Mckesson stood with hundreds of others on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, to push a message of justice and accountability. These protests, and others like them in cities across the country, resulted in the birth of the Black Lives Matter movement. Now, in his first book, Mckesson lays down the intellectual, pragmatic, and political framework for a new liberation movement. Continuing a conversation about activism, resistance, and justice that embraces our nation's complex history, he dissects how deliberate oppression persists, how racial injustice strips our lives of promise, and how technology has added a new dimension to mass action and social change. He argues that our best efforts to combat injustice have been stunted by the belief that racism's wounds are history, and suggests that intellectual purity has curtailed optimistic realism. The book offers a new framework and language for understanding the nature of oppression. With it, we can begin charting a course to dismantle the obvious and subtle structures that limit freedom. Honest, courageous, and imaginative, On the Other Side of Freedom is a work brimming with hope. Drawing from his own experiences as an activist, organizer, educator, and public official, Mckesson exhorts all Americans to work to dismantle the legacy of racism and to imagine the best of what is possible. Honoring the voices of a new generation of activists, On the Other Side of Freedom is a visionary's call to take responsibility for imagining, and then building, the world we want to live in.

James Taylor's Shocked and Amazed!

James Taylor's Shocked and Amazed!
Author: James Taylor
Publisher:
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2002
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN:

As the world's only publication devoted to sideshow, James Taylor's Shocked and Amazed! On & Off the Midway is chock-full of carnival and circus midway madness and mayhem. Hear the truth behind this uniquely American art form from the lips of the human marvels themselves! Shocked and Amazed! invites you to explore and satisfy your curiosity for the strange, the weird, the bizarre, the odd and the unusual.Witness never-before-seen photographs from the personal collections of sideshow superstars from yesteryear! Marvel at the sideshow stories presented personally for your pleasure by sideshow performers! Thrill to these titillating tales of laughter and woe on the sawdust trail from the likes of: Frank Lentini, who could kick a football the length of the midway with his third leg; Melvin Burkhart, the Human Blockhead who could pound six-inch spikes into his head; Harold Huge, the sideshow fat man who needs "Six Gals to Hug Him, and a Boxcar to Lug Him"; Percilla the Monkey Girl and her husband, Emmitt the Alligator Skin Man; Bill Durks, the Man with Three Eyes and many, many more. (7 x 10, 288 pages, b&w photos)

Carny Sideshows:

Carny Sideshows:
Author: Tony Gangi
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp.
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2012-03-01
Genre: Reference
ISBN: 0806535989

Step right up, Ladies and Germs, and feast your eyes on the incomparable wonders of a hidden world! Be astonished! amazed! disgusted! by brazen acts of self-destruction that no natural human body should be able to withstand! Tony Gangi, professional magician, lifelong sideshow devotee, and card-carrying graduate of Coney Island's famed Sideshow School, guides you through the stupendous techniques and proud traditions of this shocking and fascinating realm of entertainment. • Learn the secrets behind Breathing Fire! Sword Swallowing! The Bed of Nails! Pounding Spikes into the Head! • Enter the mysterious worlds of the Snake Lady, the Human Blockhead, and more! • Meet sideshow greats like Melvin Burkhart and Ward Hall. • Discover today's dedicated entertainers, like Todd Robbins, Harley Newman, Tyler Fyre, Thrill Kill Jill, Donny Vomit, The Black Scorpion, and more! • See what it takes to enter this underground yet welcoming world as a performer. Features interviews with Penn Jillette and Todd Robbins and Penn Jillette's ode to the sideshow, the "10 in 1" monologue as performed by Penn & Teller Editors's Note: Not for the faint of heart, weak of stomach or easily grossed out. So go ahead, how can you resist?! Tony Gangi, a Philadelphia native, never actually intended to make his living by shoving nails up his nose. He left the corporate world to become a professional magician and proprietor of one of the few flea circuses remaining in the world ("Live fleas do, in fact, perform circus tricks," he says. They just need to be "trained the right way and treated with kindness.") He's now mastered straightjacket escapes, fire-eating, and napping on a bed of nails. He is currently working on his presentation for walking barefoot on broken glass. This is his first book. He hopes it is not his last.