sideshow

The magician Ricky Jay’s compendium of actual “unique, eccentric and amazing entertainers” offers a parade of con artists, charlatans, escapologists, daredevils, mesmerists, contortionists and sideshow acts.

After that, his unclaimed body began its wanderings: as a greeter for an Oklahoma funeral home, as a sideshow attraction for touring carnivals, and even in a titillating 1933 pre-Code film, “Narcotic.”

While people often think of street races as the quarter-mile one-on-one speed contests highlighted by the early installments in the “Fast & The Furious” film franchise, so-called “sideshows” or “takeovers” can often prove dangerous too.

On X, where he has 4.7 million followers, he has channeled his pop-culture savvy and political outrage into a satirical sideshow, firing off punchlines like proton torpedoes.

Amorim knows, stripped away from the sideshow, he must deliver results.