PSA: I Heart Carnival.

For whatever reason, I love carnivals -- or rather, I love the idea of carnivals.

I love the freakishness of a carnival, the way they seem almost supernatural because they make the abnormal seem routine. I don't even mean the lobster-girl or two-headed-calf or freak show elements of some carnivals: I mean the routine of pulling down and setting up giant metal contraptions that people pay to ride on, week in and week out.

I mean the bizarre games that travel with carnivals. I mean the fact that you'll pay five dollars to try to win a stuffed toy that wouldn't be worth half that in a toy store. Carnivals are practically by definition places where normal rules don't apply.

And we go to them at night.

The show Carnivale does a pretty good job of capturing the eerie feel of a carnival, and it avoids becoming a comedy or a satire of itself -- as happens to most carnival-themed shows or movies set in contemporary times -- by being a part of Dustbowl mythos, by casting Michael J. Anderson, the most serious little person I know of, as the head of the group, and by brilliantly enlisting Ronald Moore as producer (or maybe he enlisted everybody else).

But nothing has the freakish appeal of an actual visit to an actual carnival.

Maybe one day I'll get around to doing that photo-study of carnival rides -- maybe not. But for now, consider today's posts my ode to carnivals.