When you believe that individuality is something you can model visually, you've always got to up the ante to stay at the bleeding edge. So here's the latest, straight from Kalamazoo. The next level in "extreme piercing." It's called "suspension," and yep, it's kinda what you might guess from the name. Cringe-worthy, to say the least.

Now, (Kalamazoo tattoo and piercing shop manager James) Rajewski, 27, says he's ready for "the next level." Tonight, he and three others will participate in a "suspension show" at Club Soda at which they will be lifted off the ground by hooks ("like deep-sea fishing hooks without the barbs") through the skin of their shoulders, backs and forearms. It'll be Rajewski's first time and, from what others in the piercing world have said, a first for the city.

The popular novelty act called the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow, which has visited Kalamazoo before, involves performers who use piercings to suspend objects from their bodies, but it does not present full-body suspensions.

Suspension is mostly an underground practice in larger cities. About 15 U.S. and European groups are listed on the Web site www.suspension.org as offering more information about suspension, and several sources interviewed for this story said they have attended private suspensions in Grand Rapids. But in Kalamazoo, many people have not even heard of the practice and may find it shocking and disgusting to contemplate.

"A lot of people think I'm pretty much crazy for doing this," Rajewski said. "... People who don't know much about suspending, they are like, 'Why are you doing this?' A lot of people are like, 'Oh, you enjoy pain.' But it's not really that I enjoy it. I don't enjoy it. I hate pain as much as the next person."

So, why is he subjecting himself to the pain then? "It's more like a test of self-control, self-discipline, to kind of have the mental capacity and control to overcome it, I suppose."

There's a psychotherapist's couch in Kalamazoo with your name written on it in DayGlo Green, James. Don't tarry.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at June 13, 2005 11:29 AM

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