“An academically gifted young woman who excelled throughout school has quit her university course to fulfill her dream of becoming a freak show performer. As a young and ambitious student, Danielle Martin, 24, would compete with her two school friends to see who could get the best grades, describing herself as a ‘goody two-shoes’. Now, Danielle earns her living hammering nails into her nose, jumping barefoot on shards of broken glass and climbing up a ladder made of Samurai swords – all in the name of entertainment… Danielle says her mother has now grown used to her daughter’s eccentric performances, and even asked Danielle to show her nail-in-the-nose act at a dinner party. But while Danielle is happy to continue with her freak shows for the time being, she doesn’t believe her academic days are over.” w/ photos

“If you visited the Khan Younis Zoo in the impoverished Gaza strip, you would see quite a variety of animals, but on close inspection, you would realize that over half of them aren’t even alive. The ones that died have been stuffed before going on display to keep visitors entertained. It sounds pretty creepy but the zoo keepers really have no choice. They cannot afford to get new animals across the border, and don’t really wish to smuggle them illegally, and can barely afford the food costs for the few live animals they have left. So it’s up to the embalmed corpses of the zoo’s dead animals to entertain the 200,000 odd people of Khan Younis.” w/ photos + video