Ladies and Gentlemen
Boys and Girls
Welcome to the greatest show on earth…
If you have come here
Then you know what is in store for you…
Caterpiller men
Push-Me-Pull-Yous
Chocolate Rivers
Flying Donkeys
Dogs dressed up as people
And Body modification like you've never seen before….
Ok
Who am I kidding…
You wont find any of that here…maybe on my hard drive…but not on my blog…
Ok…maybe on my blog…
So
The Caterpiller man…
I did a lot of research in first year, when I was looking at Joel Peter Witkin…He's a photographer who, well…ok…he uses fairly non traditional models…anorexics, hermaphrodites…twins…amputees…the dead…giants…dwarfs…everyone and anyone goes basically…
Some of his images reminded me of the old photos you sometimes stumble upon of circuses…back in the day…some of the colours and characters…
Also at the time i was watching a lot of carnival…which also feeds into all of this in a strange way…
I am also just generally interested in deformities…of the body and mind…man made and nature made…It's just an interest i have. Im not going to try and explain or justify it. It just an area that I look at every so often…
So, one of the most interesting stories I came across when doing this research, which was solely for myself, was the Caterpiller man…or Prince Randian "The living torso"
In 1932, Tod Brownings film "Freaks" was released...I have still yet to get my mits on it...but I will find it and I will have it.
I think, looking back on it now...we could say...wow those people were exploited because they were born different, or they had a mental handicap or the women didn't shave...or whatever...but I think that's us projecting our educated and learned views on something that happened so long ago.
I can't really put it any better then this...
"In a time not that long ago, though, people with extreme physical abnormalities were not only considered as "FREAKS" or MONSTROSITIES" by society at large, but they sometimes were ostracized even by their own families. The sideshow was just about the single institution that was welcoming of one who was born with, say, four legs or perhaps with no legs. The sideshow not only presented these social out-casts with a chance to earn a living, but it also gave them an opportunity to interact with others, and sometimes even find love."
I know we have come leaps and bounds...but something about that time totally fascinates me...the town in New Jersey that has ONLY albinos living there...Alice and Wonderland Syndrome...BIID...there is some much about the human mind, and body, that we really don't know anything about...we are just barely scratching the surface...
It is so very interesting...
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