Natural Born: Circus, Sideshow, and The Art of Being Human

Tomorrow is the release date of Aaron Smith’s new book Natural Born: Circus, Sideshow, and The Art of Being Human (Outside Talker Press).

But before I sing its praises, I only just realized that I never wrote up my account of the Coney Island Book Fair! I’m not sure how it fell through the cracks, other than I immediately had a series of other events to promote and prepare for — and there’s your answer. So let me quickly recount it. My wife (artist Carolyn Raship) and I shared a table in a little row with the likes of Laetitia Barbier of the Morbid Anatomy Museum, and Marc Hartzman, author of the book American Sideshow (a terrific resource) and author/publisher of numerous other books besides. We chatted with these guys and other participants we encountered, like good friends Sarah Porter, Jonny Porkpie, and Jo Weldon; Laurie Gwen Shapiro, who wrote a terrific New Yorker piece about Kevin Fitzpatrick’s successful quest to bring Dorothy Parker’s ashes home; burlesque stalwart Fancy Feast, whose debut book Naked: On Sex, Work, and Other Burlesques came out in 2023; and of course Lady Aye, ringmistress of the whole show. Later, I led a panel discussion on writing about sideshow that included Aye, the one and only James Taylor of Shocked and Amazed,Dawn Raffel, who wrote The Strange Case of Dr. Couney: How a Mysterious European Showman Saved Thousands of American Babies, the book about the incubators shown at Coney Island that got lots of attention back in 2018, and of course, Aaron Smith, who impressed me mightily, which takes us right back to the present.

Natural Born is a series of thoughtful profiles of contemporary sideshow performers of the “born different” category. This category of entertainer, once considered the royalty of the sideshow, was nearly extinct by the end of the 20th century, mostly due to public disapproval of such spectacle. When the sideshow revival came into being in the ’80s and ’90s, it was mostly about the working acts doing traditional stunts: fireplay, sword swallowing, blockhead business, bed of nails, walking on glass, the straight-jacket escape, blowing up a hot water bottle, the gaffed electric chair, all that sort of stuff. Once in a blue moon you would encounter uncanny folks like the limbless Otis Jordan or 500 lb Katy Dierlam, but for the most part it was rare, and you got the sense that a taboo was being broken.

Then, a few years ago, several natural born performers emerged on the scene, enough of them that it seemed to resuscitate a landscape that was becoming sort of moribund — how many times can you watch the same ten tricks? It’s strictly anecdotal but as someone has been observing sideshow for over three decades, it seems to me that the positive influence of two latter day stars, “Woman With a Beard” Jennifer Miller of Circus Amok, and British born Mat Fraser (born with thalidomide syndrome) gave inspiration and permission to a younger generation. Both of these artists have enjoyed wide and prominent publicity, not just in media but also in academia. The social permission to appreciate them among the wider public arose because their spectacles consist of more (in both cases much more) than their physicality. Both are writers, spokespeople, theorists, performance artists, historians. Miller sings and dances; Fraser is a musician. Miller’s patter is leavened with cutting edge feminism and queer advocacy. Fraser is a champion of the disabled and the working class. Miller juggles swords, eats fire, does the straight jacket escape. Fraser is an actor who’s played classical roles and been a regular on popular mainstream television shows like Loudermilk and American Horror Story. (Come to that, maybe I should add the barrier-bursting Peter Dinklage as a third example. He never worked the sideshows that I know of, but he’s the first little person to conquer the show biz world on his own terms). Anyway, in these cases the audience never feels like they’re gawking at someone “less fortunate”. It’s more like “Holy fuck, I have some catching up to do!” or even more truthfully “As long as I live, I will never be as impressive as this person”.

Miller and Fraser both get chapters in Natural Born, though they are integrated into the overall kaleidoscope of humanity Smith presents, rather than singled out as pioneers. The book is not laid out chronologically in that way, although Smith does convey their significance in the broader picture, as well as that of influential presenters like Dick Zigun, co-founder of Coney Island USA,Adam Rinn, current artistic director of CIUSA, and Chris Christ of the World of Wonders, the last touring sideshow. Smith brings numerous assets to the table as the author of this book, not the least of which is the fact that he is “with it” himself. In the ’80s, he traveled with both the Big Apple Circus and Ringling Brothers, Barnum, and Bailey Circus as a roustabout and candy butcher. His first book Circus Jerks: A Memoir, was about that experience. For the past 30 years he has been a journalist, published in major organs like Forbes, The Boston Globe, The Financial Times, and scores of others. He draws from both elements of his make-up equally here, combining careful and detailed portraiture, obsessive thoroughness, and knowing sensitivity.

I think it will come as a shock to most readers how many performers of this kind are out there performing nowadays. I’ve had the pleasure of working with some of them and knowing them personally, and of seeing a wider subset of them in live performance, but was delighted to discover many others I hadn’t been unaware of through Smith’s book. I’m pretty much tethered by geography to Coney Island USA, but of course there are sideshow scenes elsewhere in places like Philadelphia, the Jersey Shore, Austin, New Orleans, and Florida. Every single artist Smith writes about is also a working act with hardcore circus or performance skills of one kind or another beyond whatever condition they were born with. Several of them are also writers. A couple also straddle the burlesque and kink scenes. (Hey, no judgment!)

Though none of these performers are paid the kind of salaries the Born Different once commanded in sideshows and midways back in the day, to a person none feels they are being exploited. Though it speaks to Smith’s excellence as a journalist that he includes the opposing viewpoint, voiced by Eileen Norman, head of the Little People of America. (Her particular bugaboo is so-called “midget wrestling” though she also seemed to disapprove of sideshow on principal). Traditionally, sideshow folk, including the Natural Born, have had deep scorn for the “Do Gooders”, whose attitudes they take to be both patronizing and inimical to their quality of life. Reformers never seem to stop to consider the possibility sideshow performers actually LIKE what they do, else they wouldn’t be doing it. Of course, it has to be admitted that such people are NOT the worst enemy of the disabled. That distinction belongs to the Ableists who see them as “less than”, some of whom would go so far as to euthanize their kind, as Smith reminds us. Since the beginning of time the Natural Born have been fighting an existential battle.

A few in the book, such as Jennifer Miller, Dakota the Bearded Lady, JellyBoy the Clown, and Erik Sprague (a.k.a. The Lizard Man) are self-inflicted, meaning they were born like most people, then improved upon nature to achieve a profile that set them apart. Their inclusion catalyzes the book’s force rather than diluting it. They too, are outsiders, though they crossed the Rubicon later in life. You might might call them the “Natural Born Again“.

Otherwise, for the most part, the people in the book were born with a variety of conditions. Nati Amos a.k.a. The Patchwork Girl was born with amniotic band syndrome and a clubbed foot. The Black Scorpion and Greta the Lobster Girl (Kim Kelly) have ectrodactyly, the condition Grady Stiles had. John T. Rex has phocomelia (no forearms). “Bendable Girl” Camille Zamboni has Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (as does my wife, incidentally). Jason Brott, The Illustrated Penguin Boy has TAR Syndrome. Like Johnny Eck, Aaron Wollin a.k.a. “Shorty the Half Man” has sacral agenesis. Australia’s Sarah Houbolt, who has Hallermann-Streiff syndrome, has revived Koo-Koo the Bird Girl! Several in the book, like Nik Sin, Xander Lovecraft,Li’l Miss Firefly, and Tyler West have various kinds of dwarfism. The lovely lady on the cover is Jackie Molen, The Human Tripod, who also has her own curio emporium!

But the point is to meet all these people as individuals and Smith provides the opportunity, through interviews, and sharp, detailed observation. And while Smith stresses that the book is first and foremost about the contemporary sideshow scene, he also does an excellent job of bringing history into it for context. Many contemporary acts pay tribute to their forbears or echo their careers in others ways.

Natural Born is only the latest A+ publication by Jim Moore‘s Outside Talker Press, previous ones being The Rise and Fall of the Sideshow Geek (both it and Natural Born co-published with Shocked and Amazed! Imprints); Memoirs of a Coney Island Clown: Jelly Boy’s Sideshow Saga; and more recently the periodical The Sideshow Gazette.

Stay tuned! There are two launch events in NYC next weekend, both with panel discussions, a chance to meet the author, the editor, the publisher, and some of the folks in the book. They will be: Saturday, June 7, 4pm at Coney Island USA, and Sunday, June 8, 4pm at the American Mime Theatre. Details are here.

As for the book itself, get it here.

And for over 300 articles about sideshow and dime museum “human anomalies” from back in the day, find that section of Travalanche here.