SNAKE OIL FESTIVAL THIS WEEKEND!

No, I'm not talking about any presidential debates!

www.snakeoilfestival.com

It is a three-day event in New Orleans that features 

burlesque dancers, acrobats, aerialists and other circus and sideshow performers from across the country. 

The festival kicks off Friday night, June 19, at the Howlin' Wolf with 

James Taylor's lecture, How I Spent My Carny Vacation, in which he recounts his entry into the carnival world.

James Taylor is an authority on carnival and sideshow history 

and is the keynote speaker at this weekend's Snake Oil Festival.

Snake Oil Festival aims to recreate the magic of the midway. 

Festival producers 

— New Orleans-based performers Ben Wisdom, Little Luna and Ginger Licious — 

wanted to build on the popularity of burlesque shows in the Crescent City, 

which often feature variety acts between striptease performances. 

 Marlo Marquise of Albuquerque ...
fire-eating striptease/suspension artist
 photo by Brian Maze

With three shows over the course of three nights, 

the festival will present nearly 60 burlesque and sideshow acts, 

highlighting a number of local artists alongside their nationally and internationally acclaimed peers.

 In addition to the variety shows, Snake Oil Festival 

will host an after-party at Hi-Ho Lounge Friday night featuring gypsy jazz band Mayhayley's Grave.

 Another after-party at Siberia Saturday night features Debauche!, the self-described Russian mafia band. 

The festival presents a series of workshops with festival performers Saturday and Sunday afternoon, 

covering topics ranging from Tarot card reading and glass walking to production advice and travel tips. 

On the carnival midway, the differences from show to show may seem profound to the average fair-goer, but in point of fact, sideshow people of all stamps

 — including burlesque, magic shows, monkey speedways, you name it — 

all of those people were jumbled up on the carnival midway.

And in CARNIVAL OF THE DAMNED, 

(soon to be in print), 

young Victor Standish believes he has stumbled upon such a midway ...

but once working there, he discovers it is much more and deadly in ways that threaten the soul as well as the  body.