It's Friday. It's summer. And maybe this is all going to be a little too much.

But considering what we've just stumbled upon, you're just going to have to deal with a little insanity today.

And it comes in the form of whole roasted animals, performers on stilts, midget Marilyn Mansons and a pet wolf...seriously.

Prepare to enter into the bizarre and fascinating freak show that is the Carnivale of Ascension, a masquerade ball/dinner party/séance touching down for two nights only next week in the East Village, and accepting reservations now.

If you're wondering what an evening social at Tim Burton's downtown loft might be like, this is probably as close as you'll get without sitting down to eat with Beetlejuice. Hosted by a few East Village socialites with a penchant for overarching, theatrical opulence, Carnivale is the sort of unique dinner party you've been longing for this summer. The night begins with you entering a graffiti-covered mess of a building in the East Village and finding yourself in a giant loft with a communal table built for 70 of your closest friends. It ends, however, with you ritualistically devouring desserts off of a human tray. (You know, typical Tuesday...)

But let's back up a minute: before you mouth sponge cake off of a doily-clad nude, you'll need to survive cocktail hour (reproductive organ hors d'oeuvres and tequila cocktails), make your way through platters of whole roasted animals (roasted goat, bunnies and salmon) and don a costume.

All the while, you'll be surrounded by wildly adorned bird-people pecking away at your food, the aforementioned Mini Mans running roughshod over the table and plenty of other shell-shocked revelers.

Suddenly, the pet wolf in the corner makes a lot more sense.