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Extraordinary Exhibitions: Broadsides from the Collection of Ricky Jay
An informal history of sensational, scientific, silly, satisfying, and startling attractions based on seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth-century broadsides from Ricky Jay's extraordinary collection. It includes observations on the convention of promoting such appearances, digressions on the manner and method of printing advertisements to do so, and insights into the psychology employed to that end. All are compiled in a monograph that is itself a shameless attempt to entertain and elucidate.
It is the contention of the author that neither the tongue of the most florid orator, nor pen of the most ingenious writer, can sufficiently describe the elegance, symmetry, and prodigious accomplishments of those who pass in review within these pages
Included are broadsides an armless dulcimer player, a ghost showman, a singing mouse, a chess-playing automaton, a cannon ball juggler, an African hermaphrodite, a chicken incubator, a rabbi with prodigious memory, a ventriloquist, a spirit medium, a glass blower, a woman magician, a speaking machine, a mermaid, a bullet catcher, a flea circus, and an equestrian bee keeper. Illustrated throughout
It is the contention of the author that neither the tongue of the most florid orator, nor pen of the most ingenious writer, can sufficiently describe the elegance, symmetry, and prodigious accomplishments of those who pass in review within these pages
Included are broadsides an armless dulcimer player, a ghost showman, a singing mouse, a chess-playing automaton, a cannon ball juggler, an African hermaphrodite, a chicken incubator, a rabbi with prodigious memory, a ventriloquist, a spirit medium, a glass blower, a woman magician, a speaking machine, a mermaid, a bullet catcher, a flea circus, and an equestrian bee keeper. Illustrated throughout
176 pages, Hardcover
First published May 6, 2005
129 people want to read
About the author
Ricky Jay
30 books51 followersRicky Jay (born Richard Jay Potash in 1946) was an American stage magician, actor, and writer.
Born to a Jewish-American family, Jay is considered one of the most knowledgeable and skilled sleight-of-hand experts in the United States. He is notable for his signature card tricks, card throwing, memory feats, and stage patter. At least two of his shows, Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants and On the Stem, were directed by David Mamet, who has also cast Jay in a number of his films. Jay has appeared in productions by other directors, notably Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights and Magnolia, as well as The Prestige and season one of HBO's Deadwood as card sharp Eddie Sawyer.
Until recently, Ricky Jay was listed in the Guinness Book of Records for throwing a playing card 190 ft at 90 miles per hour (the current record is 216 ft, by Rick Smith, Jr.). Ricky Jay can throw a playing card into a watermelon rind (which he refers to as the "thick, pachydermatous outer melon layer" of "the most prodigious of household fruits") from ten paces.
Born to a Jewish-American family, Jay is considered one of the most knowledgeable and skilled sleight-of-hand experts in the United States. He is notable for his signature card tricks, card throwing, memory feats, and stage patter. At least two of his shows, Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants and On the Stem, were directed by David Mamet, who has also cast Jay in a number of his films. Jay has appeared in productions by other directors, notably Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights and Magnolia, as well as The Prestige and season one of HBO's Deadwood as card sharp Eddie Sawyer.
Until recently, Ricky Jay was listed in the Guinness Book of Records for throwing a playing card 190 ft at 90 miles per hour (the current record is 216 ft, by Rick Smith, Jr.). Ricky Jay can throw a playing card into a watermelon rind (which he refers to as the "thick, pachydermatous outer melon layer" of "the most prodigious of household fruits") from ten paces.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 1, 2012
I am such an asshole. I know it. I live with it everyday, like a chronic disease. I have nearly uncontrollable urges all the time to just scream the most offensive thing that comes into my head in any quiet situation. Maybe that's something related to Tourette’s? Now I'm making excuses why it's not my fault and that is just the worst asshole thing of all. I digress. Look at my original review, what a perfect example of my affliction. How excited I was to see some freaks. What a horrible, ugly impulse. Whether it's paying a shilling to gawk at a hermaphrodite a 100 years ago or Reality TV today, if your life only seems better by comparing it to an episode of Cops or a Kardashian, then that is a profoundly sad statement about you. And god fucking damn you America that that TV reference even exists in my brain despite exacting efforts I take to avoid anything 'pop culture', for lack of better term. I know people who watch shit like Entertainment Tonight, seemingly normal people! Man, I'm sorry to say this but anyone who is capable of extracting enjoyment from Entertainment Tonight should be summarily executed, now I'm getting off track.
If you bought this book to gawk at freaks, you'll only do so at the cost of feeling like a complete scumbag, and cheers to Ricky Jay for that! These are human beings and he treats them as such. I've personally had many advantages in life, all of which I've wasted with nothing to show for my 33 years on this planet whereas most of the people in this book have made a far better go at it than I, doubt I could have fathered 14 kids with no arms or legs.
The book is as much about the art of broadsides as the attractions they advertise. And it's a fascinating peek into the entertainment of past. This is hardly the freak show I was hoping for and most entries are rather tame: contortionists, tight-rope walkers, ventriloquist, strongman, exotic animals and magicians decapitating animals. Besides what would later become circus staples were all types of mechanical innovations, automatons who speak, sing, bartend and play chess. These in particular attracted a mix of lower class gawkers and the upper classes ‘there for the science', some shows even written up in the Lancet.
Of course many cross the line between exploitation and entertainment: siamese twins, birth defects, rare diseases, The Bronx zoo kept a pygmy in a cage, a woman forced to exhibit her oversized labia (which later found it's way into Paris museum only returned to her home country for burial in 2002.) YIKES!
Despite making me feel like a jerk this book is delightfully entertaining: mermaids (often manatees sewn together with other animals), people eating rocks, pig faced ladies (usually a shaved bear. Whose job was it to shave that bear? Even my job is not that shitty.) If you’re interested in educated fleas, singing mice, learned cats, Troy the sapient pig, or the Giant Hungarian Schoolboy you can’t go wrong with this book, just don’t expect a crude freak show, this book is so much more.
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One of my greatest regrets in life, and man do I have a lot, is that I was born too late to enjoy circus freak shows. Though this book predates the traditional freak show by many years, it is still an utterly fascinating read!
If you bought this book to gawk at freaks, you'll only do so at the cost of feeling like a complete scumbag, and cheers to Ricky Jay for that! These are human beings and he treats them as such. I've personally had many advantages in life, all of which I've wasted with nothing to show for my 33 years on this planet whereas most of the people in this book have made a far better go at it than I, doubt I could have fathered 14 kids with no arms or legs.
The book is as much about the art of broadsides as the attractions they advertise. And it's a fascinating peek into the entertainment of past. This is hardly the freak show I was hoping for and most entries are rather tame: contortionists, tight-rope walkers, ventriloquist, strongman, exotic animals and magicians decapitating animals. Besides what would later become circus staples were all types of mechanical innovations, automatons who speak, sing, bartend and play chess. These in particular attracted a mix of lower class gawkers and the upper classes ‘there for the science', some shows even written up in the Lancet.
Of course many cross the line between exploitation and entertainment: siamese twins, birth defects, rare diseases, The Bronx zoo kept a pygmy in a cage, a woman forced to exhibit her oversized labia (which later found it's way into Paris museum only returned to her home country for burial in 2002.) YIKES!
Despite making me feel like a jerk this book is delightfully entertaining: mermaids (often manatees sewn together with other animals), people eating rocks, pig faced ladies (usually a shaved bear. Whose job was it to shave that bear? Even my job is not that shitty.) If you’re interested in educated fleas, singing mice, learned cats, Troy the sapient pig, or the Giant Hungarian Schoolboy you can’t go wrong with this book, just don’t expect a crude freak show, this book is so much more.
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One of my greatest regrets in life, and man do I have a lot, is that I was born too late to enjoy circus freak shows. Though this book predates the traditional freak show by many years, it is still an utterly fascinating read!
July 11, 2017
Broadsides where the advertisements of the 17 and 1800’s. And the acts they advertised seem better than the television shows, plays and concerts we now attend. Crazy magicians, automata, giant heads, impossible juggling, freaks, and mermaids. Imagine going to see the first ever elephant in America or the greatest German living born without legs or hands but could do amazing things. We can’t go back in time and see them in all their glory but we can imagine it all because of the remnants and research of Ricky Jay. The ads themselves are just as creative as some of the acts - especially when naming the different tricks and pieces. The Chinese Plate and Dish Dance, The Magic Money, The Bird from Sebastopol, The Inexhaustable Hen…are all from just one broadside. If your are in advertising or design you have to see these. They are beautiful vehicles to take you back to the world as it was.
April 15, 2020
A treasure. Mr Jay is one of my top cultural heroes and the deeper I dive into his work the more I appreciate what he did -- nothing less than the preservation of miracles that would otherwise be lost. This is a collection of handbills and broadsides, ranging from The Learned Horse (1618) to Cinquevalli "King of the Jugglers" (1898). Jay's commentary is understated, relentlessly witty, and utterly informative. In this strange era of home confinement, reading this book has been like going to a dime museum, a circus, and an erudite, esoteric lecture. Five star home entertainment. Copies should be issued on demand!
April 17, 2010
A coffee table book of very rare advertisements for the bizarre. I read the introduction but could only bring myself to skim through the individual broadsides. A 17th century miracle horse is amazing, but just the idea is enough.
August 21, 2008
Fascinating to a print / typography enthusiast (and ephemera collector) like me.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews