Customer Reviews

Freaks and Fire: The Underground Reinvention of Circus

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This book offers a lot--it is an insightful and intriguing look inside the world of alternative circus shows, and is both entertaining and riveting. The accompanying photographs really capture the essence of the performances, as well, and complement this thought-provoking tome quite nicely. I would heartily recommend this book to anyone.

J. Dee Hill is a former bureau chief of Adweek writing about "radical" or "alternative" circus. This is not your familiar Ringling Brothers Circus, meant mainly to drawn families and entertain and awe children. This radical circus cannot even be compared to a typical, traditional circus. Think the most outrageous performance art you even saw--and then some. The side show has taken center stage. Although some of the costumes and performances resemble the Mardi Gras carnival festivities of Rio de Janiero. Zamora the Torture King, Brothers Grim Sideshows, and Bindlestiff Family Circus are the names of some of the troupes. Hill takes these and a few others one by one with accompanying photos by Hollenbeck to demonstrate the exotic make-up and dress and the startling acts. The book doesn't play up the sensationalistic, sometimes macabre, occasionally repulsive aspects of such circuses--this is evident enough without any emphasis by the author. The book has a sociological and cultural vein too, with performers telling their interesting stories of what drew them to this field of contemporary entertainment and how they got into it.

Freaks & Fire: The Underground Reinvention of of Circus is not only a wild romp, it's funny, poignant and ultimately inspirational. Author J. Dee Hill has a natural ear for the best stories and writes with dry wit and aplomb that well suits her subject. Reminiscent of the better volumes of RE/Search Press, F & F gives you a all-access pass to the weirdest roadshows, ranging from the astonishing to the scatological. Bizarre freaks and uncanny wonders are brought forth to wriggle in the light, whether to entertain or provoke.

For me, this was ultimately an insightful study of creative communities, their triumphs, heartbreaks and the factors that can lead to their dissolution. This is a must-read for anyone interested in the dynamics of modern collaborative and nomadic communities, united through love of craft, showmanship and new ideals for living. The failures are every bit as instructive as the successes. The personalities are bigger than life, sometimes problematically so. But more often than not, the synergy crackles, takes light and generates real awe and wonder. Reinvention begins with the circus template but soon takes flight into other unexpected realms.

Hill's secret history captures this ephemeral world with such poetry that it will be the rare reader who doesn't want to run away with the circus. Essential reading!

Gorgeous cover and the hand-designed letterpress titlepages are fantastic, but I thought there would be more color photography. There are several spreads on nice big color images but most photography in the book is black and white. Definitely an interesting read though, and looks great on a coffee table. I bought this for a friend who's a Burning Man enthusiast and he was pleased with it. Props to Phil, Jeff, and Casey!

"Freaks & Fire" is misnamed. With one exception, the acts profiled by J. Dee Hill are not circus but sideshow. And primarily not just sideshow but geek show.

The exception is Circus Contraption, the Seattle-based parody/homage circus and eclectic musical group. Circus Contraption is the reason I purchased this book, but unfortunately there is little more about it here than I could have read on their Web site.

The remainder of the book, though distasteful and often silly, is more informative.

Circus Contraption is a combination of circus -- that is, people performing stunts like juggling -- and satirical theater. It is (except when performing kiddie shows) X-rated, always witty and often biting. The title of one of their songs, "We're Roasting a Witch on a Stick" gives the flavor.

Sideshow is also about stunts, but creepy ones, starting with fire-eating and sword swallowing and advancing to pounding nails up the nose etc. There is only one old-fashioned sideshow left, performing during the summer at Coney Island.

Sideshows are also about freaks. Siamese twins and the like are not exhibited any more, but completely tattooed freaks still appear. One profiled here is Zamora the Torture King, who is not only covered with blue tattooes like a jigsaw puzzle but has little horns (made from Teflon) implanted on his brow.

Zamora`s specialty is cutting himself and shoving large pins through various parts of his body. He judges his success by the body count, how many in the audience faint.

So far, so traditional. At least some of these freaks are consciously reviving the ancient freak/geek shows, although apparently nobody is still exhibiting the classic geek stunt of devouring an entire live chicken. Probably because of their entirely po-mo sensibility: Degrading and making people suffer is entertainment but training a dog to jump through a hoop is immoral.

While some of the groups include a radical consciousness-raising agenda, left over from the Haight, others are just shows. Burning Man is a part of the development of many of them.

Of the groups Hill profiles, the only one I have seen on stage is Circus Contraption, although I have seen geek shows similar to the ones he surveys. Too many of them don't know the difference between shock and disgust. Some of the performances are literally sick.

The performers are not entertaining you but purging (often, literally) themselves. Hill acknowledges this, barely. Ed the Clown, co-founder of the defunct End of the World Circus (one of the acts with a "message"), tells Hill: "My circus friends are all abusive, or were abusive to some degree, self-abusive that is. Most of the people who were in it were saved from their own addictions or saved from bad environments."

The radicalism has been a complete failure. As alternative entertainment, it sounds more like alternative therapy. It's hard to tell whether it has been any more successful there. For the boy who lost an eye and both legs trying to get into a show that folded, probably not.

The other shows profiled (not all still functioning) are The Jim Rose Circus, Enigma and Brothers Grim, Cloudseeding Circus of the Performative Object, the Yard Dogs Road Show, Bantu Mystic Family Circus, Know Nothing Family Zirkus/Zideshow, Flam Chen and the Bindlestiff Family Circus.