News To Me: The Half-Man Had A Whole Twin Brother 2013

by **Admin** Sun Sep 15, 2013 8:20 am

2013 2013 2013 <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-656j8IZ7qqA/UjLxNBGYxXI/AAAAAAAAQSo/VcDWpVQxNm0/s1600/aaawatch4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-656j8IZ7qqA/UjLxNBGYxXI/AAAAAAAAQSo/VcDWpVQxNm0/s640/aaawatch4.jpg" width="504" /></a></div> The Johnny Eck Aspect of Freaks (1932) <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lQv08_-VJfQ/UjLxPC7d7hI/AAAAAAAAQSw/rG7qaO4HaME/s1600/aaawatch2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lQv08_-VJfQ/UjLxPC7d7hI/AAAAAAAAQSw/rG7qaO4HaME/s640/aaawatch2.jpg" width="520" /></a></div>Here's something everyone else probably knew, but I had missed ... Johnny Eck had a twin brother (by name: Robert). And he was normal, as in possessing the lower body Johnny lacked. Thoughts go immediately to their childhoods. Could Johnny "run" faster than Robert? Were baby pictures of the pair taken waist up so they'd look more the same? Bio-info tells us that Johnny ended, as in stopped, right below the rib cage. We pause a moment to ponder --- how does a body function by half? Interest in Johnny Eck is propelled by his being in Freaks. For that, he was paid $35, according to (much) later interviews. You'd spend that much today filling Johnny up at Olive Garden, were he still around (d: 1991). Handlers really misused people like Eck (real name Eckhardt), as if they weren't human at all. Indeed, they'd be routinely presented as something less than that. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qeqNRN8OCt4/UjLxQjTU7QI/AAAAAAAAQS4/zSLGfDZyLws/s1600/aaawatch3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="486" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qeqNRN8OCt4/UjLxQjTU7QI/AAAAAAAAQS4/zSLGfDZyLws/s640/aaawatch3.jpg" width="640" /></a></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xVLWnOEqrYg/UjLxS5LFimI/AAAAAAAAQTA/Pgj3U6BRqJ0/s1600/aaawatch1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xVLWnOEqrYg/UjLxS5LFimI/AAAAAAAAQTA/Pgj3U6BRqJ0/s640/aaawatch1.jpg" width="288" /></a></div>The article above left promises much that wasn't delivered, Tod Browning declaring, for instance, that "we may make enough for him (Johnny) so he can quit the sideshow life, which he abhors, and turn to his true love, which is music." That never happened, of course. Johnny ate sawdust for years to come, as did his brother, who may have briefly studied medicine, but never made a career of it. What I first knew of Johnny was gleaned from a Freaks screening at the long-gone Janus Theatre in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Greensboro</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">NC</st1:state></st1:place>, where it 1971 midnight-played with Un Chien Andalou. We drove eighty-three miles each way and got back home around three a.m. That's what it took back then to see old movies. Best recollection of the show is a close-up eyeball slit with a razor (Un Chien Andalou) and Freaks' muddy soundtrack, both scented by cannabis that was part-parcel of seemingly all 60/70's midnight runs, Johnny Eck surviving all the while in hometown <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Baltimore.</st1:place></st1:city> Awareness of that came courtesy Richard Lamparski's 1985 Whatever Became Of ..., Volume Nine. Johnny's later life was pretty sad. Things happened to him I don't like thinking about. Let's just say they open your eyes to cruelty some folks are capable of. Thanks to Scott MacQueen for passing along the above 1932 article. 2013 2013 2013 <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-656j8IZ7qqA/UjLxNBGYxXI/AAAAAAAAQSo/VcDWpVQxNm0/s1600/aaawatch4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-656j8IZ7qqA/UjLxNBGYxXI/AAAAAAAAQSo/VcDWpVQxNm0/s640/aaawatch4.jpg" width="504" /></a></div> The Johnny Eck Aspect of Freaks (1932) <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lQv08_-VJfQ/UjLxPC7d7hI/AAAAAAAAQSw/rG7qaO4HaME/s1600/aaawatch2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lQv08_-VJfQ/UjLxPC7d7hI/AAAAAAAAQSw/rG7qaO4HaME/s640/aaawatch2.jpg" width="520" /></a></div>Here's something everyone else probably knew, but I had missed ... Johnny Eck had a twin brother (by name: Robert). And he was normal, as in possessing the lower body Johnny lacked. Thoughts go immediately to their childhoods. Could Johnny "run" faster than Robert? Were baby pictures of the pair taken waist up so they'd look more the same? Bio-info tells us that Johnny ended, as in stopped, right below the rib cage. We pause a moment to ponder --- how does a body function by half? Interest in Johnny Eck is propelled by his being in Freaks. For that, he was paid $35, according to (much) later interviews. You'd spend that much today filling Johnny up at Olive Garden, were he still around (d: 1991). Handlers really misused people like Eck (real name Eckhardt), as if they weren't human at all. Indeed, they'd be routinely presented as something less than that. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qeqNRN8OCt4/UjLxQjTU7QI/AAAAAAAAQS4/zSLGfDZyLws/s1600/aaawatch3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="486" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qeqNRN8OCt4/UjLxQjTU7QI/AAAAAAAAQS4/zSLGfDZyLws/s640/aaawatch3.jpg" width="640" /></a></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xVLWnOEqrYg/UjLxS5LFimI/AAAAAAAAQTA/Pgj3U6BRqJ0/s1600/aaawatch1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xVLWnOEqrYg/UjLxS5LFimI/AAAAAAAAQTA/Pgj3U6BRqJ0/s640/aaawatch1.jpg" width="288" /></a></div>The article above left promises much that wasn't delivered, Tod Browning declaring, for instance, that "we may make enough for him (Johnny) so he can quit the sideshow life, which he abhors, and turn to his true love, which is music." That never happened, of course. Johnny ate sawdust for years to come, as did his brother, who may have briefly studied medicine, but never made a career of it. What I first knew of Johnny was gleaned from a Freaks screening at the long-gone Janus Theatre in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Greensboro</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">NC</st1:state></st1:place>, where it 1971 midnight-played with Un Chien Andalou. We drove eighty-three miles each way and got back home around three a.m. That's what it took back then to see old movies. Best recollection of the show is a close-up eyeball slit with a razor (Un Chien Andalou) and Freaks' muddy soundtrack, both scented by cannabis that was part-parcel of seemingly all 60/70's midnight runs, Johnny Eck surviving all the while in hometown <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Baltimore.</st1:place></st1:city> Awareness of that came courtesy Richard Lamparski's 1985 Whatever Became Of ..., Volume Nine. Johnny's later life was pretty sad. Things happened to him I don't like thinking about. Let's just say they open your eyes to cruelty some folks are capable of. Thanks to Scott MacQueen for passing along the above 1932 article. 2013 2013 2013 <a href="http://www.matrixar.com/" title="Matrix ">المصفوفة : أجمل الخلفيات والصور</a>