While I was at the bookstore yesterday I noticed a display of the book No Excuses: The True Story of a Congenital Amputee Who Became a Champion in Wrestling and in Life. I asked the clerk behind the counter whether the book I wanted was in stock. It wasn't, so I picked up the autobiography with the long-winded title and wandered through the store leafing through its pages. I wish I could say I was looking for the recipe for championing life, but I wasn't. I didn't care about wrestling either. I just wanted to see pictures of an amputee. Here was an inspirational book with jacket endorsements from Arnold Schwarzenegger and I just picked it up to see if there were photos of a guy with no limbs. A brief skim of the book satiated my curiosities. There were photos -- color glossies no less. I'm only mildly ashamed at my inclination to gawk. After all, if I told you there was a website dedicated to a fingerless fiddler would you click on the link? Go on . . . click it . . . click it.
The parenting book I was looking for is out of print, so I ordered a used copy from Amazon. Before finalizing my order my inexplicable zeal for human anomolies forced me to look for another book I had longed for a few Christmases ago, Freaks: We Who Are Not As Others, My wife had been unable to find it so instead she gave me Very Special People: The Struggles, Loves and Triumphs of Human Oddities. I devoured this book in a few short days. Something on world history I'd bore with after a chapter or two, but give me something on people covered in hair or peoplw with abnormally small heads and I can't put it down. I must not be alone in this admiration for the congenitally eccentric. After all, Michael Jackson makes no bones about his purchase of the Elephant Man's skeleton and Back to the Future's Crispin Glover reportedly collects diseased eyeballs. Furthermore, when I opt to purchase the freaks book from Amazon, I'm immediately asked if I would like to purchase any of another several titles on the same topic, including one entitled So You'd Like To . . . Get Your Freak On. There's a market for this.
In Very Special People, Frederick Drimmer addresses our astonishment with those often labeled as freaks. He says that when we see them we take greater comfort in our own normalcy. Personally I think "freak" is a relative term. Everyone is freakish in someone's view. Not everyone has a conjoined twin or extra limbs of course, but we all possess some attribute or quality that could potentially mark us as freaks. My coffer is minus one family jewel, for instance, though this was the result of surgery, so I don't think that puts me on the same level as someone who was born a uniballer. Regardless, some may consider it freakish.
I'm not saying freak is bad. After all, some of my best friends are freaks. Freak is the new chic. This is the importance of being freakish.
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