PANAMA CITY BEACH — Before Harley Newman swung fishhooks from his eyelids, he had visitor tie his wrists to his head with a padlocked chain.
Newman was at Ripley’s Believe It or Not in Panama City Beach on Saturday for the eighth annual World Sword Swallowing Day. The event, according to Sword Swallowers Association International, is to raise awareness of the talent.
“A performance is all about playing,” Newman said before his 2 p.m. show.
The New Jersey native and resident of Philadelphia indeed played with the audience. Along with shoving a blade down his throat, Newman stuck a drill and nail in his nose (and licked both afterwards).
He invited a woman to participate in what he called a test, which just involved repeating Newman’s actions of yelling and waving around a wooden plank.
The 20 or so people gathered outside Ripley’s variously cheered, laughed and groaned during his performance.
Newman said he’s been swallowing swords for 10 years. He’s been performing professionally since 1972.
“To me, having a sense of theater and storytelling is an essential vehicle to further a character,” he said.
He performed with a red bandana tied around his head. His shirt and pants were black and his blue eyes were wide and intense. He cracked jokes and portrayed himself as haphazard.
For sword swallowing, you have to learn how to deal with nerve endings in the throat, Newman said, perhaps sarcastically. A performance involves being even-minded and paying attention to what you’re doing. If not, you could get hurt.
“The art form is old,” he said.
Newman said sword swallowing is as ancient as tribal theater, and that every continent had an equivalent stunt.
He compared sword swallowing to the goal of ancient shamans performing superhuman feats to prove they could talk to the gods. A shaman had to prove he wasn’t bound by the rules of this world. Performances were both heroic and bizarre, Newman said.
Although he said he travels all over the country (and has been to 187 countries), he hasn’t toured much the past few years. During Saturday’s performance he seemed at ease, as if he had popped tennis balls out his mouth the entire week.
As for his wrists chained around his head? Newman wrung them free.
