These objects may be in your home, but do not try this at home.
First of all I have to scream this at the top of my lungs: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. Sideshow performers are trained and experienced professional performers. If you want to learn how to do these sort of acts I urge you to find someone who is a professional sideshow performer who is willing to mentor you. Never do any of these stunts alone or without proper training and safety gear. Just don’t. That being screamed at you, here we go ladies and gentlemen. This is not for the faint of heart.
Among my top favorite sideshow acts involving items commonly found in domestic space are the Human Cutting Board. This sideshow act employs a cutting knife and a cucumber within the parameters of their purpose, however they are used a bit out of context. The cutting board for this act is the human spine. The performer places themselves on all fours with their bare back as level as possible to emulate a cutting board. The cucumber is then gingerly sliced in the style of professional chef along the spine of the human cutting board by another performer. This act is visually disturbing as the knife is usually an over sized demonstratively sharp vegetable knife. I do not know how the bare skin on the back does not get cut. and I don’t want to know. It’s better that way.
My very favorite act using common household items is the Human Blockhead. A nail is pounded into the nostril using a standard hammer. Blockheads utilize nails, screw drivers, forks, curling irons, butter knives etc. I have seen people do the Human Blockhead using custom spiraled metal attached to a drill. I am not so sure how to feel about taking what is already very disturbing to watch and adding complication to it. The beauty of the traditional human blockhead is that we are unnerved by what we do not see. We see the body of the nail pounded inside the performers head but we do not see where it goes. Some acts insert items that come out the other side. Nice, gross, but there is a thin line between an entertaining and fascinating act and an anatomy lesson. To slip an item into the nasal cavity and show it coming out some other hole takes a lot of skill and practice, but it also takes the other aspects of showmanship out of the act. Build up and drama are essential to the sideshow. I want to pay for my whole seat and only use the edge. I want to see that nail excruciatingly pounded into the performers head, and I want to imagine where it went and what membranes it may be rupturing. Once the mystery of the human interior is revealed during the act it loses it’s captivating charm for me. Speaking of captivating charm. I am very excited to visit Sideshow Bennie and Anna Fiametta in Nashville. I will be photographing them in their homes as part of my project. They are good people and they have a lovely sideshow that is a beautiful mix of comedy, burlesque, gross out, scary, and fun.
