Palace of Wonders benefit

Link: Washington City Paper: News & Features: Blogs.

Tonight, step right up to the Palace of Wonders for a special “Weirdo Show” performance to benefit local jugger, magician, and pirate worker Johnny Anderson, who has been in and out of the hospital after having his leg crushed by a car last June. The benefit features performances by conjurer Eric Henning, vaudeville comedians Phillips and Flathead, glass-walker Mab Just Mab, and burlesque dancer Sugar Ann Spice. Proceeds will go towards Anderson’s surgical bills. Anderson’s wife, sword-swallower Charon Henning, has had her one share of side-show related medical emergencies; check out this March S&T on local sword swallower injuries for more on her. Anderson’s injury, though, didn’t occur at the side-show, but rather outside it. The circumstances of Anderson’s injury are weirder than sword-swallowing, glass-walking, and pirate-working combined. John Spitzer, a.k.a. Weirdo Show emcee Professor Sprocket, says that Anderson’s leg was crushed outside the Palace’s first anniversary bash when a D.C. police cruiser made a sudden U-turn, striking Anderson. Anderson and Henning pressed charges couldn’t find a lawyer to press charges. Says Spitzer, “now the District doesn’t have any record of the incident, and the officer in question seems to have disappeared.�%8