Atop the ferris wheel at night, it's easy to imagine you're at a rural carnival circa the 1930s. Below is the striped roof of the Big Top, folks chomping candy apples, a fellow bellowing into a bullhorn to step lively, the fire-juggling show is about to begin. Look further out and except for a sprinkling of lights, there's just the black silence of farm fields: not a hint of iPhones and climate change and endless hurry.
The fun and charming Carnivàle Lune Bleue, at the rural Kars fairground near Manotick until Sept. 6, is a re-creation of a 1930s carnival. Running 6 p.m. to midnight only, it's the brainchild of Kars carnival enthusiast Wayne Van De Graaff. The event features three tent shows, games of skill such as the Milk Bottle Toss where a guy can win his sweetie a prize, and the Congress of Wonders, a carnival artifacts museum complete with a preserved Turtle Boy (the carnival forgoes other once-popular freak show exhibits) and a for-display-only Love Tester: back in the day, you'd plug in your 25 cents so you, and onlookers, could learn your appeal quotient as a bulb lit up beside Blah, Harmless or Hot Stuff.
In the Ten-in-One Carnival Diablo Show tent, we watched goggle-eyed as sideshow champ Diablo hammered a six-inch spike up his nose and swallowed razor blades. He turned fellow performer and strongman the Mighty Leviticus into a Human Dart Board. He also introduced Istvan Betyar, sword-swallower extraordinaire whose talents include extinguishing a blowtorch with his mouth ("My God, I can't believe I'm watching this," whispered one audience member, her eyes averted only briefly from the stage). It's all done in deliberately over-the-top style that detracts not a whit from the tension.
As we left the grounds late at night, we glanced backward: the carousel circling in the foreground, the Big Top's striped roof just visible, the star of lights on the side of the turning ferris wheel - living in the 1930s might have been just fine.
