carnivalesque

“Instead, he offered the term "carnivalesque," a world where passions bubble over, costumes are forever sliding off of all-too-fleshy bodies, genders are bent, and toilet jokes are as sure as the sunrise.”

The Wall Street Journal: Picking Out Eye Candy

“In a number of venues now (check out Zilvinas Kempinas's "Ballroom," a disco-meets-bumper-car installation at Yvon Lambert) the carnivalesque is alive and well.”

The Wall Street Journal: Taking Senses to the Extreme

“This is a fine book, but it is far from the only "carnivalesque" novel to be found in postwar fiction.”

Comedy in Literature

“To some extent, Everett's practice in a work like Glyph is an illustration of M.M. Bakhtin's concept of the "carnivalesque," in which an attitude of "radical skepticism" makes it impossible for anything to be taken seriously.”

October 2009

“In the great tradition of American slapstick comedy (what I also like to think of as a tradition of "carnivalesque" comedy as described by M.M. Bakhtin), Bob Hope is one of its most important figures, and perhaps the figure most unjustly left out of critical considerations of this tradition.”

Film

“Ray captures his "carnivalesque" qualities precisely: "an absolute distrust" of everything "serious" that informs all of his best films, right down to a distrust of his own role in the film.”

Film

“GEEK LOVE comes immediately to mind, of course; Bakhtin's concept of the "carnivalesque" if you want to get all lit theory-ish, and poetic imagery from Hart Crane to Red Skelton.”

Friday Cleanup: Links, Appeals, Speculations

“LH: Recently I watched Atonement, which I wasn’t intending to, and to my surprise I found the movie intriguing, particularly the war scenes in which Robbie finds himself wandering in a kind of carnivalesque masquerade.”

Archive 2008-07-01

“Time to stroll around the grounds where corporate sponsors were peddling carnivalesque amusements: Rows of chill-out teepees, a strange cluster of bunkbeds, Ferris wheel rides for charity and a psychic who would tell your fortune if you texted her a "yes" or "no" question.”

The Washington Post: In concert: Virgin Mobile FreeFest at Merriweather Post Pavilion