The Heart of the Carnival

Mythopoetic Carnival part 2

A few years ago I was working in Stockholm, Sweden with a show called La Clique, and in a conversation with a woman who is a proper multi generational circus artist from a traditional circus background I described myself as a carny. Carny is someone who works at a carnival. When she heard this, I could see puzzlement on her face. She was a little shocked. In the world of traditional circus there is a great hierarchical distinction between a Carny and a circus artist. From my experience there is also an enormous hierarchy between performers and the tent workers or roustabouts, but that is a different story. From her it became abundantly clear that a carny was not an artist. From her whole upbringing it was clear that carnies and carnivals was very much lowlife.

From a certain point of view, that is true. Most carnies aren’t artist. There are artists at the carnival but there is arguably a more mechanical tone to the whole operation. One less level of artifice or artistry colouring the base level entertainment for cash. In one way there is little difference between someone paying to get to shoot at mechanical doing ducks in a shooting gallery for the possibility of a prize, and a well crafted circus act performance, but this little difference can makes all the difference.

At the end of the last millennium I was trawling through all videos and documentaries I could find about carnivals and freakshows. In the footage and documentaries on the VHS tapes, this was before the youtube, practically before the internet, and before DVD’s had taken over, there was a line that kept reappearing, a stock line repeated by many performers and promotors in different versions an ways. “It doesn’t matter what you think of this exhibit, or attraction, cause we got your money now,” I didn’t like it. That line was in many ways a through line of this industry at leas in the American shows which was where the majority of the documentaries came from, this might be a certain American flavour, but then again the multi generational circus woman grew up in the United Kingdom so the lowness of carnival’s might be universal. This quip “doesn’t matter what you think about the act,” betrayed the state of the art. Many of the documentaries, and the representations of the carnivals was in a nostalgic flavour, like portraits of a dying art form. Tired performers presenting tired one dimensional acts ala: “Here I have a nail, now I put it up my nose. Now I pull it out. For my next trick…” 

My passion for the carnival arts certainly wasn’t dying, it was on the rise, so in a dialectic sense, this became the thesis that helped me form my antithesis, which eventually led to a new synthesis. This end-of-an-era feel helped me crystallise the Way I wanted to present the carnival, in my performance sideshow arts. This came into fruition with the Happy Sideshow, which ill get back to in a bit.

Of course in America, and then all over the world, there was the Jim Rose Sideshow which was an amazing revival of the freak show. This show in its first incarnation was absolutely influential on me, when I saw it in 1993, I think, at the Roskilde music Festival. Seeing them, combined with the fact that I had just had my nipples pierced by Håvve Fjeld  an incredible fakir doing pincushion and body suspension performances, you know getting lifted into the air by meathooks through your flesh kind of stuff. He’s a fellow Norwegian misfit, based in Oslo, have a look at his work, ill post a link in the show notes. His performances back then in the early nineties had a much more shamanistic flavour than a sideshow flavour his group was and is still called Pain Sollution. Håvve and the Enigma, Mat the tube Crowley and the Torture King Tim Cridland, the star attractions presented by Jim Rose where pivotal inspirations for my real world carnival explorations.

Coming back to the carnival phenomenon and the mechanical overlay thing, the artlessness or the carnival is maybe found in the fact that many of the carnies are literal mechanics and builders more than artists. I want to be careful here because artists exists everywhere in every field and as Ill get back to in the next episode I love lowbrow art. 

A carny might own a rinky-dink old ride and is basically just a mechanic selling tickets to people for rides on his machine. Other carnies sell lottery tickets where you can win slum and stuffed, crappy, plush toys and maybe a Mötley Crëw mirror, as we remember from the Bikini Kill lyrics in the last episode. They basically sell you shitty souvenirs by making it prizes in rigged games of chance, or straight up raffle ticket sales. There’s no skill involved for the proprietor of such attractions. They do it for the cash with very little thought to art. The carnival is a pragmatic place. The purpose of the wheel of fortune is to make money. It uses the inherent human attraction to games of chance and gambling, the allure of winning money, or even a prize, as the collateral for the transaction. No fancy overlays.

In the heat of the moment a multi generational circus princess, might snap that there’s no heart in a carnival. It’s just cheap and tawdry, and carnies have small hands and stink of cabbage. (Circus princess is a very common “feature” or mode of presenting a female multi generational circus star in, at least Danish Circuses. Practically every circus highlights one of their female performers as a “real Circus Princess. It is not in any way an attempt at belittling anyone. A Princess in mythology is a very important, high ranking person. Even if Disney has appropriated the term and “disneyfied” it, does not, in my opinion take anything away from the power of a princess. But this is a path of exploration for another time.)

And the small hands and cabbage is a silly quote from Mike Myers’s character Austin Powers:

Austin Powers: There are only two things in this world that scare me and one is nuclear war.

Basil: What’s the other?

Austin Powers: Huh?

Basil: What’s the other thing that scares you?

Austin Powers: Carnies. Circus folk. Nomads, you know. Smell like cabbage. Small hands.

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

Ridiculousness aside, the carny life, for real life carnies, is often hard. A few years ago a journalist called Nancy Rommelmann wrote a captivating article for the La Weekly about the lives of contemporary present day carnies, and the picture she paints shows this lowest of the low aspect in all its tragic beauty:

“Hang around the midway during the day while the carnival is readied, and you’ll

understand the literal meaning of “stayed too long at the fair.” The rides and

games show the stress of the road — and so do the carnies: Most of the workers

washing down booths or bagging cotton candy look as though they haven’t 

showered for a few days. Sweatpants are stained, sweatshirts splotched with circles

of motor oil, and there’s evident truth behind the fairground joke What do you get

with a roomful of carnies? A full set of teeth. In short, everyone looks poor.

Which they are:”

Nancy Rommelmann,  Lives of the Carnies

http://www.laweekly.com/lives-of-the-carnies/

The Nature of the Mythopoetic Carnival

So if this is the reality of the carnival, what then is the Mythopoetic Carnival? One way to understand it is through Plato’s theory of Ideas. This is a philosophical theory, concept, or world-view, that suggests that the physical world is not as real or true as the timeless, absolute, and unchangeable Ideas, which exists as a kind of separate reality. That there is an entire non-physical landscape of forms or ideas, and anything in the real material world is just an imitation or incarnation of this Idea world. Behind or inherent in all rabbits lies the Idea or form, of rabbit. Each rabbit is just an imperfect manifestation of the idea or ideal form of Rabbit, with a capital R. Each incarnation of the non-physical idea Rabbit is in a sense limited by being real, by reality pushing and pulling and constraining the possibilities of its full existence.

Whether the Theory of Ideas is a real feature of reality is outside of the scope of this episode. But for me Plato’s notion that each process, which we talked about in episode 8 where is my art? Both rabbits and carnival’s are processes, are imperfect representations, or incarnations, ideas made flesh, of an Idea or form with greater potential, unhindered by reality’s constraints, another, non-physical realm of pure potential and mythic proportions, is a very apt expression of the way I view the Mythopoetic Carnival. Nancy Rommelmann’s real world carnival is but an imperfect representation of the full potential, of the Idea of the Carnival. 

The fact that the lowest of the low is one persistent feature of it makes it attractive as a foundation, which we explored in the last episode. Foundations are found beneath your feet. Solid dirt, or perhaps even bedrock.

Diamonds in the Gravel

Also, the fact that you don’t expect to find anything of great significance or value in the low, is to me more a powerful potential, than a flaw. The mindset of someone only expecting to find cheap thrills have their hearts open in a certain way. They are not protected, or guarded, like you could imagine a person attending a gallery presenting the latest in contemporary art. The trepidation we have approaching conceptual art is a kind of guarding of ourselves. We have that in all encounters with art, also for us Showfolk when we first meet our Crowd, they are wondering whether they will fully accept you, and let you take them with you. 

But in things like conceptual art its even more prevalent. Like the banana gaffa taped to the wall for one of the premier art shows in America, the Art Basel Miami Beach. The piece was called Comedian and was the creation of Marizio Cattelan. The buyers of the banana defended the artwork as “the Unicorn of the Art World,” by comparing it to Andy Warhol’s Soup Cans, and paid $120.000 for it. 

A banana taped to a wall as an example of modern art is just whacky and “off the wall” enough to be presented as a carnival attraction. It’s title is very much nodding to the Craft of Showmanship. The banana is the fruit with the highest comedy potential. Although when it comes to vegetables I would argue that turnip, at least has the funniest name. Turnip. Turnip. Turnip? I made my daughter laugh by saying turnip the other day.

On the level of carnival attraction “Comedian” could be in a funny carnival exhibition, it could be presented as a clown’s art piece, in a mockery of modern art. The right Showman could probably sell tickets to that, but to understand and value the piece to the sum of $120.000 you need to understand a whole other level of theory and art historic context. To understand it enough to believe its valuable to this level you need specialised knowledge. There is something visceral about a banana taped to a wall, enough to warrant paying a dollar at a carnival, but there is something abstract and deeply intellectual about it as well, which, when fully understood, can elevate its value and importance astronomically.

I guess in a sense this Mythopoetic Carnival is similar to the banana on the wall. With all the thoughts, and carrying on talking and thinking about it, as I have done in my life, and we are doing right now, I have discovered, through this specialised knowledge, the abstract, the Platonic Carnival. It’s completely unimportant for the average American carnival worker, yet it I think it can be directly valuable for Showfolk of all kinds and in all branches of Showmanship, for reasons we explored last episode, like understanding who we are as show’ers of material, as presenters of ideas in entertaining ways, and also as a wellspring of ideas for creation and the shaping of the material presented. 

Lens of Showmanship

The Mythopoetic Carnival is the fertile potential of the Idea of the carnival. For us, who follow the Way of the Showman it is also the Way the world looks like when we view it through the lens of Showmanship. I say that in the show intro but we’ve not really spoken about it, but this esoteric knowledge we are developing and discovering here is what the lens of Showmanship can reveal for us. 

Looking through any lens alters your vision, changes what you see. Some lenses are telescopic, some microscopic, some caleidoscopic. The important thing to remember is that we are looking through a lens. Every human being is always looking at the world through lenses of bias and limitation, based on their personal circumstances, by explicitly stating at the beginning of it all that we are looking through a lens, I hope to lodge it in your mind. I will talk in-depth about the pitfalls of make believe in a later episode.

Our view of the world is always limited, and partial, along the Way of the Showman we use the lens, we focus and adjust its scope to see the stars, adjust it again and see microscopic tardigrades, (also called waterbears or moss piglets) adjust it again and are treated to the kaleidoscopic, psychedelic, and possibly even transcendental.

Getting back to the story of me talking to the Circus Princess in Sweden. The show I was performing with was, as I mentioned called, La Clique, I toured with that gang of people for twelve years and the life and times with that show has very much influence me in who I am. Many people was involved with that show, but as it came to be the world wide phenomenon, it was the work of Brett Haylock, which now is like a brother for me. At the time of the conversation La Clique was playing its first of two seasons at Gröna Lund, a carnival in Stockholm. The show had gone completely gangbusters and it was the talk of the town, sold out and packed to the rafters. So that is another strange loop. That we had the carnival conversation at a carnival performing our acts, her’s circus, mine sideshow clowning.

Until she questioned me about it, I had not fully thought through why I identified as a carny, but put on the spot, I managed to account for why and in that process argue for the re-contextualisation of it. Because as I became aware I was using it in a different way than the one she was thinking of. At the time I had yet to have discovered the Mythopoetic Carnival, so the identification came from a more real world place. I have already traced some of this ideas back to Pain Sollution and the American Sideshow Revival, but more immediately, the carnival I was self identifying with came from me being a part of a subsection of the Australian contemporary circus scene, where which did call themselves, or identify as carnies. 

The reason for this was that we were and some still are, part of creating a carnival, unlike the carnival described by Nancy Rommelmann which is the kind the Circus Princess was thinking of. Our gang of circus misfits, sideshow performers, and fringe festival artists had been reclaiming the term of carnival starting at the dawn of the new millenium in the development of the Garden of Unearthly. 

Garden Of Unearthly Delights

In Adelaide for the fringe festival there is a juggernaut of a carnival experience happening in a glorious parkland. It’s put on by many, but a pivotal player is the pioneering and highly creative team of Strut & Fret founded and spearheaded by Sarah Stewart and Scott Maidment, both pivotal in me coming to Australia. The Adelaide site I Rundle Park, what became our Showgrounds was first used by the Famous Spiegeltent, which was owned and operated by the Speigelmeastro David Bates, who at the time was employing Brett Haylock, this was pre La Clique. Soon a kind of carnival grew up around the Spiegeltent. A circus bigtop featuring the Happy Sideshow, which I will get back to in a minute, a few food stands, bar tents, and the supremely influential Tony Rooke’s Tiny Top. Tony Rooke is known as the Godfather of Australian contemporary circus. His Tiny Top was a sideshow tent. With short sharp sideshow acts, including amongst a stellar line up the Space Cowboy, Trent “Birdmann” Baumann, Azaria Universe and myself. We talked up a storm outside and drew crowds in. I loved the Tiny Top. Performing endless shows in that little tent was hugely influential. It was in that tent my fascination for the preacher as a character or archetypal showman coagulated my can-stacking-legs-behind-my-head act into the “follow your dreams” act. I wanted to take on the role of the preacher, but after talking hallelujah schtick for a while, I wanted to express something more true to myself. This is where my speech culminating in the “follow your dreams” message came from. For those who don’t know the act, I’ll post a link in the show notes.  

Anyway, from this festival grew a kind of movement, a shared sensibility, combining sideshow, burlesque, circus, delicious fat fried food, popcorn and fairy floss, crazy bands, and eventually also a Ferris wheel, bumper cars and a carousel. 

I was a freak show performer for many years. I was in a show called the Happy sideshow at the time with Shep Huntly, who’s poem about the Showman we read in episode 8, the Space Cowboy and Tigerlil. We worked together for about four years and to reinvent sideshow as a celebration of fun and of the difference. This was the synthesis I talked of, using the philosopher Hegel’s terminology. In the process of creating and working and performing we helped shape the way sideshow was perceived in Australia and the expression it took on the Australian scene. Australia too had had a sideshow tradition at the agricultural state fairs in form of Sideshow Alley’s, but we were something different. It was our mission to bring Sideshow to the centre stage, “make the macabre mainstream", as we liked to say at the time. We took influence from rock n roll. Many of the venues were we were playing were rock n roll venues, and music festivals. Sideshow is a mirror to rock n roll. Sideshow is shock n roll. Before Elvis, crowds crammed into tents to be shocked and horrified with sexuality, the limits of decency, physical deformity, and intimidating skills and acts like sword swallowing and human pincushions. This kind of performance had people fainting and screaming and church going decent people would be offended by it. The parallels are many and interesting, the two art forms are hitting the same chords and affording the same kind of resonance in Crowds. 

We loved the carnival arts, and calling ourselves Carnies came from this love. But the carnival we inhabited was unlike the carnival described by Rommelmann. And the Mythopoetic Carnival is another huge step beyond that.

The Mythopoetic Carnival is not anchored in the solid dirt of the outer world. The pegs of its canvas tents and attractions are pegged into the fertile poetic soil of our inner world. Of my inner world, where the freaks and the rides, the pumping music and the smiling faces of the carnival patrons takes on an otherworldly existence and are representations of deeper human behaviours and tendencies. It has torn itself loose from the real world limitations. I think of it as an other worldly entity, a non-physical reality existing somewhere in the world between. In the realm of poetic imagination, between reality and fiction, between the world and the human being, between the world and the Showman, and between the Showman and the Crowd. It exists at the frontier of the endless conversation between our inner and outer geographies.

“I am a Carny,” is a reclaiming of the term. 

Something that was used as a derogatory term, is reimagined and reappropriated. The reality of this carnival is a place of imagination, and meaning creation. Then in another strange loop, in the process of performing I am realising, or making the Mythopoetic Carnival real. The kind of imagination we’re using is the poetic imagination we talked about in episode 2, a participatory process of where the inner geography is in conversation with the real. The imagery discovered at this frontier is, at least at first, nebulous, like the reflective surface is one of those wobbly wavy mirrors of a mirror maze grimy from a thousand touches of sweaty greasy fingers from children and stumbling people, drunk on beer and high on sugar from clouds of cotton candy, fairy floss on pink paper cone sticks, but by now, at the end of our second episode of mythic explorations I think we are getting to grasp the nature of this Mythopoetic Carnival, through the fun fair mirror distortions.