Hundreds of Occupy Wall Street activists were only days away from celebrating the two-month anniversary of the occupation of Zuccotti Park when Mayor Bloomberg deployed the NYPD to clear the park in what can only be called a para-military raid, undertaken in a media black-out in the early morning hours of November 15^th. Over five-thousand books and much personal property were destroyed in the raid and most of the other major Occupy encampments throughout the country, including Oakland, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles, were evicted within weeks. In its battle for territory, the Occupy movement had suffered an enormous setback.

But last night, 31 December, 2011, the Occupiers could relish a major, if short-lived, victory in their territorial struggle. Protesters and revelers at Occupy 2012: Wall Street New Years Eve Celebration wrested many of the steel barricades that had been placed around Zuccotti Park after the eviction and had surrounded it ever since, from the perimeter and threw them into a huge pile in the middle of the plaza. The police, many of them clad in riot gear, were greatly out-numbered and handily out-maneuvered by the protesters, and even their pepper-spray, which they discharged into the face of more than one protester, failed to give them a tactical advantage sufficient to overcome the crowd or prevent the victory pile of steel barriers from growing larger.

Once the mountain of barricades was complete, some of the protesters climbed triumphantly on top of it with banners and an American flag, while others decorated it with Christmas lights and yellow and black Occupy caution tape. Unsurprisingly, a vibrant and ecstatic drum circle quickly followed.

At around 1:00 a.m., dozens of police officers began to converge on the north side of the park and at about 1:30, many of them entered it with riot-cuffs, batons, and helmets and began to make arrests. Two police officers forced a young Hispanic man against a tree and as he was being hand-cuffed he shouted, “Can you tell me why I’m being arrested?! What am I being charged with?” As he was led to a police van, many protesters asked him his name. He yelled in response, “Angel Rodriguez!” In total, sixty-eight people were arrested.

Once police had cleared the park by either arresting or threatening to arrest anyone present, they were joined by a group of men and women (presumably employees of Brookfield Properties, which “owns” and maintains Zuccotti Park) and began dismantling the pile of barricades in the center of the plaza and re-placing them around the perimeter. The last thing I heard as I left Liberty Plaza early this morning was the loud and triumphant declaration of a man who had been supplying pizza to the protesters throughout the celebration. Addressing a group of police officers who were escorting us off the sidewalk and away from the park, he shouted, “We won this battle! You may win the next one, but this one was ours!”

Satyagraha, the opera by Phillip Glass that closed last night at the Metropolitan Opera, is the story of the early years of Mahatma Gandhi’s non-violent protest and peaceful resistance in South Africa. And although I have not seen the opera myself and am therefore open to correction on this point, I assume that Satyagraha casts Gandhi and the tactics of non-violence that he and his followers employed, in a favorable light. If so, that is a view apparently not shared by some at Lincoln Center toward actual, living and breathing non-violent protestors in the twenty-first century.

In a breath-taking display of untrammeled hypocrisy and tone-deafness, the powers that be at Lincoln Center, one of the world’s great cultural institutions, blocked the main entrance to Lincoln Plaza (which is, according to my sources anyway, a public space) with steel barricades in order to keep peaceful, non-violent protestors from the Occupy Wall Street movement from assembling there; and in doing so demonstrated plainly and unequivocally that the principles of non-violent resistance and civil disobedience advocated by Gandhi were to be glorified on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera, but scorned on the steps of that very same building. It seems that the basis upon which non-violent protest and, for that matter, Constitutional liberties, are to be tolerated in and around Lincoln Center can be summed up in three simple words: location, location, location.

Naturally, the NYPD, to which Mayor Bloomberg had referred only two days earlier as “[his] own army,” were on hand to contend with those who dared to breach the barricade or otherwise defy the orders of Lincoln Center’s director of security, Susan Bick. At one point, the hundreds gathered on the sidewalk used the people’s mic to address Bick directly and by name, asking her politely to approach the crowd and discuss the barricades. In response, Bick folded her arms, turned her back, and then haughtily walked away. I can recall no time at which I have been addressed by name by a group of hundreds of people speaking in unison, so in fairness, I can’t say what my own reply would have been in that situation; but apparently condescension, annoyance, and dismissal were the best Ms. Bick could manage under the circumstances.

Ms. Bick’s feckless response was, much like Lincoln Center’s decision to obstruct the right of free assembly of non-violent protestors in a public space on the closing night of an opera about non-violent resistance, a completely wasted opportunity.

It is inconceivable that I could have reached the age of twelve without being lied to. I had, after all, not been raised in isolation from other human beings. And as I reflect on it now, it seems altogether implausible that I would not have recognized the perpetrators of at least some of these inevitable falsehoods for what they were and called them out on their lies. It seems implausible, that is, until I consider that as a child I was both extremely credulous and incredibly timid. I was, in the parlance of the midway, an “easy mark”. My childhood timidity, credulity, and tractability also made me an excellent target for religious inculcation, but I’ll grind that ax another time.

The very first occasion on which I can recall another person telling me something that I knew to be utterly false and on which I marshaled the courage to confront the liar with the known facts, was, fittingly, on the midway.

The midway in question was at the Oklahoma State Fair, an annual gathering in Oklahoma City of corn-dog, funnel cake, and cotton candy vendors; trinket peddlers; mechanical bull, thrill-ride, and sideshow operators; Alibi agents; lot lice; Flatties; townies; and, rubes like me who just couldn’t wait to be separated from their hard-earned cash.

Only on a dare or when facing the prospect of starvation, should any sensible person who has reached the age of majority eat a funnel cake.

One of the many sideshow attractions on offer at the Oklahoma City fairgrounds in the summer of 1983 was A GIANT ALLIGATOR!!! MEASURING OVER TEN FEET IN LENGTH AND WEIGHING MORE THAN 800 POUNDS, THIS ENORMOUS AND TERRIFYING, MAN-EATING MONSTER WAS CAPTURED IN THE AMAZON AND IS ON DISPLAY NOW, ALIVE AND ON THE INSIDE!!!

Or words to that effect.

As anyone who has ever visited the midway knows, for attractions such as these, the bally often isn’t delivered live, but is pre-recorded and played in a constant loop over a PA system that invariably sounds as if someone had simply placed a bull-horn in front of a gramophone.

The quality of the PA system notwithstanding, I was powerless to resist the hypnotic spiel that promised a rare glimpse of a powerful and prehistoric animal, the likes of which I had only seen on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. I paid the price of admission to the attendant, a man in his mid-forties with the leathery skin and cynical demeanor that is either the product of or pre-condition for life on the midway, and ascended the platform to see THE RARE, EXOTIC, AND DANGEROUS CREATURE THAT COULD SWALLOW A GOAT ALIVE!!!

I will now tell you what you undoubtedly already know: the alligator was not real. It was a fake. And a shoddy one, at that. The only claim made regarding this attraction that was not completely false was the one regarding its length: it was, by my best reckoning, approximately twice as long as I was tall, making it indeed ten feet long or thereabouts, but otherwise, every word used to describe what was obviously a cheap, plastic simulacrum of an alligator was unquestionably false. I suppose it can be granted that it was “enormous” and “on display”, as stated in the extravagant and misleading description, but it was nonetheless a gross and fraudulent mischaracterization of the attraction and I felt, for the first time, that I had been duped (which I had).

I then had the following exchange with The Man With The Leathery Skin:

Me: Um, sir, that’s not a real alligator.
The Man With The Leathery Skin: Yes, it is.
Me: No, it isn’t. It’s fake. It’s totally fake. It’s not even moving. Not even its eyes are moving.
The Man With The Leathery Skin: Just cuz it ain’t movin’ don’t mean it ain’t real. Don’t you sit still sometimes?
Me: Yes, but…
The Man With The Leathery Skin: Well then, there ya go!
Me: Some of the paint is even chipped off of it. Why would you ever need to paint a real alligator? Under what circumstances would you need to paint a real alligator?
The Man With The Leathery Skin: Listen, son: if that alligator was fake, I would have the Oklahoma City police department on my case like white on rice, but I don’t see no police around here, do you?
Me: No, but..
The Man With The Leathery Skin: Well then, there ya go!

Or words to that effect.

A clean midway is a happy midway! (Disclaimer: To the best of my knowledge, the folks at Blue Sky Amusements are upstanding business persons and have never claimed that a bogus alligator is a real one.)

According to Costentenus, he and his companions decided that tattooing was preferable to death by wasps, tigers, spears, starvation, fire or being cut to pieces. And though Costentenus survived the ordeal, the same cannot be said for his less stalwart companions, who allegedly died (and presumably in terrible agony) in the course of the tattooing sessions. Apparently health code regulations regarding body modification were virtually non-existent and very loosely enforced in late nineteenth century China.

After three excruciating months at the hands of Yakoob’s merciless tattoo artists, the brave Costentenus supposedly killed one of the Khan’s men, was sold to a Turk who put him up for auction at a slave bazaar, and was purchased by a wealthy American whose riches were “gained in the show business.”

Thus began the good captain’s illustrious career in the freak show as a “living picture gallery”.

A full color pitch card for Captain Constentenus, The Tattooed Prince

Of course, only the most credulous twenty-first century reader can believe Captain Costentenus’s account. The tale is so fraught with implausible circumstances and unlikely characters that it’s impossible to regard it as anything more than the ornate fabrication of a flamboyant opportunist. But his story and others like it help account for the modern Western attitude toward and fascination with tattoos. They’re often seen as exotic, primal, atavistic and a hallmark of the rebellious, the fringe and the disenfranchised. To quote the Italian scientist Cesare Lombroso, “Tattooing is in fact one of the essential characteristics of primitive man and men who still live in a savage state.”

Lombroso wrote that in 1896, so we have no way of knowing if he intended his statement to apply to the millions of twenty-first century women whose lower backs would later be adorned with so-called “tramp stamps” or the countless other “savages” whose petite ankles would be graced with delicate daisy chains or tiny four-leaf clovers, but I think it’s safe to assume that he would have taken a rather dim view of all such markings, no matter how modest (or inane).

Over the past two years, I’ve had the great fortune of photographing a number of beautiful women with many gorgeous tattoos. None can compete with Costentenus in terms of total coverage or sheer audacity, but as far as I am aware, none of them are trying. And unlike Lombroso, I wouldn’t dare classify any of these women as savages, or even aspiring savages (though one of them did once express her intention to become a full-time hobo).

When I look at these women and the beautiful artwork on their skin, I can’t help thinking that the act of getting inked is indeed an act of rebellion, but not in a William Wallace kind of way. I believe (and I don’t presume to speak on behalf of anyone pictured here, or indeed, anyone pictured anywhere) that getting tattooed is a woman’s way of asserting ownership over her own body. And given the disproportionate and disconcerting influence of politicians who go to increasingly appalling lengths to limit a woman’s right to choose what she may or may not do to her own body, I see tattoos on women as an act of defiance, a political statement that she and no one else is sovereign over her own body.

And to be fair, I also see tattoos on women as an opportunity to make pretty pictures.

Enjoy.

Darling House's own Savannah D

She goes by "Kitty" and has (if I'm not mistaken) four of the seven deadly sins represented on various parts of her body, as well as much, much else.

The gorgeous and ornate Vivian Galloway whose many tattoos include the likeness of Felix The Cat

The incomparable Madame Rosebud of Darling House

Megan has a beautiful tattoo of a woman on her right arm, as well as an owl and a raven elsewhere on her person.

Succor Suicide was a pleasure to shoot with and has a tattoo of a Dali painting on her right arm.

The aforementioned tattoo of a raven

Buried in Kitty's cleavage is a tattoo of a skull.

Savannah D is stunning and I defy anyone to say otherwise.

Sources:

Freak Show by Robert Bogdan, The University of Chicago Press (1988)

http://thehumanmarvels.com/

-George Bernard Shaw

As the terrestrial existence of Jesus Christ is a matter of some dispute among professional historians, and as there is no question that Sherlock Holmes was entirely fictitious, then at least as far as George Bernard Shaw is concerned, the most famous name of any person in verifiable history is that of the master escapologist and showman, Harry Houdini, whose 137th birthday was (rather, would have been) last Thursday, March 24th.

In honor of the auspicious occasion of Houdini’s birth, it seemed only fitting that I should compose a haiku:

Harry Houdini:

Showman, conjurer, icon.

Bondage fetishist?

Now, as a professional escapologist and conjurer myself, and as one who is therefore deeply indebted to the late, great Harry Houdini, a single haiku seemed like too meager a tribute, so in the spirit of homage, veneration and cross-dressing, I offer the following photographs, which I took last week during a Houdini-inspired photo shoot.     

I hope you enjoy them.    

But a secret isn’t the same as a lie.

A lie is the deliberate misrepresentation of the truth, perpetrated in order to gain some advantage, generally a malicious one. A lie is always told with the intent to deceive, whereas a secret is merely the concealment of the truth or some aspect of it and may or may not involve the will to mislead. I may have a secret tattoo of Genghis Khan on the sole of my foot, but you are unlikely to consider yourself deceived if I fail to disclose the fact when we first meet.

Maybe I have a tattoo of Genghis Kahn on the sole of my foot and maybe I do not. Is it such a big deal either way? Not really.

And while we magicians must sometimes resort to overt lying in order to present our tricks successfully, most of the deception on which we rely is not in the form of lies that we tell our audiences, but in the fabrications and confabulations that take place within the minds of the spectators themselves. By carefully manipulating the sensory data available to his audience, the magician orchestrates a series of “experiential voids” which the spectator (consciously and unconsciously) fills with his own expectations, assumptions and interpretations. Thus, the spectator is not so much the victim of the magician’s deception, as he is both a witting and unwitting accomplice in it.

The unconcious act of filling in experiential voids and sensory blanks to create a full experience of the world is known as “schema-driven” or “top-down” processing and is the brain’s attempt to create a comprehensive picture of the world around it, often based on very little sensory information. A commonly cited example is that of seeing a cat behind a picket fence. Though much of the cat’s body is obscured by the fence, the brain doesn’t assume that those parts of the animal are simply missing. It fills in the blanks based on its many previous experiences with cats and fences and constructs a picture of an entire animal and not a Dali-esque version of one.

What every good magician understands is that the act of perception is also an act of imagination; and that the information he gives to his spectators – visual, auditory and otherwise – is fraught with associations and expectations that have formed over the course of a lifetime of experience and will almost always be interpreted in a way that is consistent with that experience.

Specifically, the magician understands that within the spectator’s mind (as in his own) a causal relationship between events has been established; and given or denied the appropriate stimuli, the spectator will automatically and unconsciously impose that causal relationship upon everything he sees and hears.

He will quite naturally expect that if he knocks a butter-knife off the table, it will inevitably fall to the floor. His experience of the world has imprinted on his mind the inescapable link between falling off the table and landing on the floor. And if, a fraction of a second after the knife falls, what he hears is not the familiar sound of metal hitting the ground, but the sound of a startled dog, he will not (if he is sane) assume that the knife has magically transformed into a dog, but rather that it landed on the hapless animal who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I include this photograph of a phrenology model because no article about the brain, perception and magic would be complete without one.