[4][5] In November 1972, Tim Craig published an embellished version of Shein's original story in reply to a letter to the editor of Studio International.
[7][8][9] In Craig's embellished version of Shein's original, John Charles Fare was born in 1936 in Toronto and attended Forest Hill College.
By the time Fare performed at the Isaacs Gallery in Toronto on 17 September 1968, he "was short one thumb, two fingers, eight toes, one eye, both testicles, and several random patches of skin."
Fare’s assistant, Jill Orr, is partially sighted and she slammed an axe between her boyfriend’s pinkies with increasing speed.
[13] Fare has been mentioned in connection with body art,[14] industrial culture,[15] and the practices of Rudolf Schwarzkogler and Bob Flanagan, and, like other performance artists, has been seen as a successor of the Christian martyrs.
[16] He has also been mentioned in the Guardian in connection with the German artist Gregor Schneider[17] Critic Audrone Zukauskaite examined the durability of this legend in Art Lies magazine.
[18] Artists Gabriel Lester, Mariana Castillo Deball, "the estate of John Fare," René Gabri, Mario Garcia Torres, and Juozas Laivys explored themes of the story in a 2007 Gallery GB Agency exhibit in France.