On The Rise and Fall of the Sideshow Geek

Coming June 1: the midway history I didn’t know I needed, Nathan Wakefield‘s The Rise and Fall of the Sideshow Geek, Snake Eaters, Human Ostriches and Other Extreme Entertainers. Wakefield may be more widely known as Nathan McScary, a juggler and fire-eater based out of Michigan. The work is published by Outside Talker Press (Vaudevisuals’ new sideshow imprint) in cooperation with James Taylor’s Shocked and Amazed (Taylor wrote the foreword).

Knowing that Moore and Taylor are associated with a project is an assurance of quality, and I couldn’t have been more pleased with this well written, expertly researched, and entertaining book. And it’s too bad! Because now I don’t get to say that “Wakefield has bitten off more than he can chew.” Because he hasn’t. Nor does the book “bite”. It is, however, full of ruminations.

The word “geek” has come to mean something quite the opposite of what it originally did. People now self-apply the term proudly when they want to indicate their immoderate love for some subject area, and their expertise in it. Only this morning on social media a friend described herself a “literature geek”. (Wakefield, for example, is a geek geek). The current usage evolved out of “computer geek”, which has been in common parlance probably since the very beginning of home computing in the 1980s. And that’s because prior to that, “geek” was roughly synonymous with “nerd”, terms that announce the uglier aspects of American culture with neon signs. The idea was that brainier people, especially those gifted in math and science, are socially awkward, and unfashionable, and hence figures of fun. (Sidebar: The irony of millions of people using smart phone and computers to ridicule the people who invented those very devices, is very rich. The geeks now have their revenge by having become billionaires, which I’m guessing assisted in the word’s rehabilitation). “Geek” was originally chosen to describe social outcasts because the word’s first definition came from the sideshow. Most readers of this blog know the word’s original meaning, but I share it for those who may not. A geek is a sideshow specialty act wherein the performer bites the heads off small living creatures (usually snakes, mice, or chickens) and swallows them, to the usually audible disgust of the audience.

Or, rather, it was that. It’s quite illegal to perform such an act any more, not just for animal rights reasons, but also HUMAN rights, too. I mean, a job that requires this kind of activity must surely run afoul of some OSHA regulations! I imagine most people know a little something about the practice from Nightmare Alley and Geek Love, and similar pop culture references. A geek has always been considered the lowest of the low, the end of the line for somebody who is on their way down. The thing is, as a particularly shady and abhorred folk practice, geeking is SHROUDED in legend and lore and misty mythology. Back in the day, it would have beneath the attention of most serious writers and scholars, and now that it has been gone for so many years, you can’t just go out and do field studies. Wakefield’s valuable work has been in tracking down what accounts he can find, in advertising ephemera, journalistic accounts, older histories and such like. His very well organized book then delivers it to us as a pleasing survey that provides us with the history of this strange performance discipline, all the dope on how such acts were produced and presented (particularly valuable now that it’s a thing of the past), and some bios of the few legit geeks whose identities were known (there are many more of them than you might imagine).

This would have been a much slimmer tome if Wakefield didn’t also provide us with lots of material that’s sort of geek-adjacent, but totally relevant, as well, for there was a lot of overlap: so we also learn about gourmands, competitive eaters, regurgitators, insectivores, snake charmers, Wild Men and Wild Women, professional wrestlers, et al, all the way to the decline and fall, and some artists who’ve revived related stunts in the present day. (Including welcome detail on a couple of urban legends from my teenage years concerning Alice Cooper and Ozzy Osbourne). Many of my friends, acquaintances, and colleagues are in the book’s latter pages, an added bonus, as is the copious quantity of historical illustrations. In the spirit of the Anarchist’s Cookbook, it also has instructions for how to perform your own geek act, which is of course something you would never do, not right out in public.

An excellent read, and an excellent reference. The geeks may be gone from the sideshow, but they can always live in your sideshow library. Get your copy here.