Freaks, Geeks and Strange Girls: Sideshow Banners of the Great American Midway

Freaks, Geeks and Strange Girls: Sideshow Banners of the Great American Midway by Varndell, Teddy. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780945367192.

A colorful history of the carnival sideshow and its distinctive banner art. With 100 color photographs, the book lovingly surveys this now-vanished icon of early rural America, counterpointing classic freak show art with contemporary interpretations. 50 archival black-and-white photos of sideshows provide a historical context for the banner illustrations. "America: The Land of Advertising, and what more blatant, pure and honest example than these beautiful paintings luring the innocent into the world of their dreams and nightmares. Unlike present advertising which pretends to be sophisticated, these are exactly what they are. All the lies and beauty of the advertisement laid bare -- the exaggerations, the seductions and the come-ons and inevitable disappointments. "Looking at freaks is looking inside ourselves, it is looking at our own bodies, what they could become, what they might have become, it is looking down that long dark tunnel at our deepest fears and horrors and secret lusts. These naive and seemingly innocent paintings ask us to confront our hottest repressed desires and those that make us recoil, shiver and retch." --- David Byrne Last Gasp Publications; trade paperback with gatefolds.