Hubert's Freaks, by Gregory Gibson, tells an unusual story (of the "truth is stranger than fiction" variety), three unusual stories really, connected like siamese triplets, by a series of coincidences that span decades of American cultural history.
It is the story of the "strange Times Square world of sideshows and freaks, of snakes and midgets and alligator-skinned ladies." And it is also the story of legendary photographer Diane Arbus who found, in that "old weird America" at Hubert's Museum, the subjects for some of her most famous photographs. And mostly, it is the story of Bob Langmuir, antiquarian book dealer and collector of ephemera, who happened upon a trunkload of journals and notations, datebooks and contracts, the one-time business and personal archives of Charlie Lucas, the sideshow's " inside talker" who was known, depending on the sideshow act, as "Charlie, Butch, Woof, Prince Woofoo or Woo Foo, the Immune Man." Buried amongst the extraordinary archive in Charlie's trunk, Bob finds photographs which he comes to realize are previously unknown Arbus originals.
If you've read
Who is Killing Doah's Deer, you know that I've spent some time researching that "old weird America" of sideshows and freaks. My Siamese twin, Clara Ederle, who spent one extraordinary summer in 1905 as a featured performer in Captain Barlow's Extravaganza, performing not as a Siamese twin, but rather as a never-before-seen Siamese triplet, wrote about it in this diary entry dated June 5, 1905.
Dear diary,I am crushed. I saw Captain Barlow and Sally kissing. How I hate her! And now I am to be joined to her. I won't do it. I won't. I won't.Captain Barlow explained his plan to me today. He says that, after Chang and Eng, the American public has grown bored with Siamese twins. He says that a new century requires new wonderments. We are to become the world's only Siamese triplets. Abigail approves of the plan, but I know she only agrees because she hates to see me happy.Captain Barlow says that Sally will be attached to us and we will be displayed as triplets. I object, but Captain Barlow says that the audience wants to believe and, in the dim light of the tent we will become huge stars. And Captain Barlow says that we must be joined, even when we are not performing, even when we are in private or we will be found out.Sally has stolen the heart of my one true beloved. I hate her.Hubert's Museum was located in Times Square and had its heyday in the 1950s, but Charlie's connection to sideshows dates back, at least, to 1933, to Chicago's Century of Progress exhibition, where Charlie Lucas was "African Chief of the Duck Bill Women." Hubert's Museum was the kind of place respectable people didn't go. Except, of course, they did go, looking for remnants of that "old weird America" that was already, even in the 1950s, disappearing, being pushed to the edges of the American landscape.
At Hubert's, Diane Arbus discovered the subjects for some extraordinary photographs - Charlie and his wife Woogie, Andy Potato Chips, Jack Dracula. When Arbus committed suicide in 1971, at the age of 48, her estate established tight control over her images. So when Bob Langmuir came upon the previously unknown photos, it was no easy task to get the prints authenticated and thereby recognized by the art establishment as items of value. And somewhere along the way, Bob came to realize that it was all just
stuff and the real treasure was what the archives revealed, what the archives preserved, a world long gone, that "old weird America".
Comments (1)
Jack Dracula. I believe I met one of his offspring once. He hitched a ride with me from San Bernardino to Williams, AZ. I had to put him in the truck bed- garlic scent and all that.