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What's Jewish about the freak show?
Step right up and find out.
JONATHAN MARK SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
DUNLEVY'Z RIVER PLACE
Yr,
0
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Coney Island:
Wonders! Oddities!
*
150 W. Congress
313-965-4970
live! The strange, the
weird, the bizarre, the un-
usual. Step right up.
Freaks, wonders and hu-
man curiosities. They're real;
they're here, and they're alive!"
In Coney Island's steaming
heat, where the air smells of
sweat and smoking shish kebab,
where a sign near a kiddie ride
warns about attack dogs, enter
West 12th Street: In this bac-
chanalian alley between the
subway and the boardwalk, a
carny barker seduces the crowd
into the darkness of the freak
show.
Madam Twisto, her body like
the purest form of rubber known
to man," pretty
and blond, stands
in the sunlight
with silver rings
in her nose and
ears. An albino
snake, as long and
thick as a fire
hose, curls around
her pale legs and
calico clothes.
Come and see Madam
Twisto's friends, cries the
barker: Serpentina the Snake
Enchantress, the Illustrated
Man, the Bearded Lady, the
Sword Swallower, the Fire
Eater, Koko the Killer Clown,
the Human Blockhead, the
Electric Lady, the Master of
Magic.
They're real, alive — and of-
ten Jewish.
So it is with the audience:
Sruli and Zechariah, 12-year-old
yeshiva boys from Borough
Park, have no idea that these
freaks are Jews. The boys sim-
ply enter wide-eyed into
the dimly lit area, more
akin to a cavern than
to a theater, past a
flapping banner de-
picting nothing but a s
hand pointing the
way. They find seats
in the first row of a
150-seat wooden
bleacher section. A
Siamese-headed
moose hangs over the
painted green stage.
The yeshiva boys
are agog as the (Jew-
ish) Fire Eater swal-
lows the flame. They
are rapt as the (Jew-
ish) Human Block-
head heaves ice
picks up his nostrils
and a Phillips screw-
A
driver down his throat.
"Oh, my God," says Zechari-
ah, laughing. "How'd he do
that?"
And now, says the (Jewish)
Sword Swallower, "I will swal-
low a steel bayonet used to de-
feat the Germans in World War
II." We must remember World
War II because the survivors
won't always be here to remind
us.
Then the master of cere-
monies, Frank Hartman (the
Jewish jack-of-all-freaks, who
performs multiple wonders),
locks Madam Twisto into the
Chinese Execution Blade Box,
slashing 15 metal blades into the
enclosure. She remains —
alive!
Ladies and gentlemen, says
Hartman, "There is an 11th
unannounced act," strange be-
yond Penguin Boy, strange
beyond the mummified 19th-
century Fiji Mermaid in a glass
case along the
wall, "some-
thing so
shocking' you
must choose to
4 make the com-
mitment to
pay an extra
dollar and en-
ter into an
eerily lit back
room, or you can stay where you
are.
Sruli and Zecharia pay their
dollar to Serpentina the Snake
Enchantress and enter to wit-
ness ...
Of course, you do not want to
be told what monstrosities and
curiosities were in that devilish
room.
If any reader is offended at
this point, please don't be. This
is art, pal, subsidized by the New
York City Department of Cul-
tural Affairs, Brooklyn Borough
President Howard Golden and
the Brooklyn delegation of the
City Council.
Dick Zigun is the grand im-
presario of Coney Island USA,
a nonprofit arts organization
that is the parent orga-
nization of Sideshows by
the Seashore, as the
freak show is formally
known.
"Being a nice Jew-
ish boy," says Zigun,
"I have two degrees in
theater, from Yale
and Bennington. But
instead of aspiring to