Steal like an Artist

So thoughts about originality and 'borrowing' material to get started as a showman has been milling around my brain.

Santini's Magi Show circa 1990.

My first acts as an assistant in my dad's magic show were all so called packet tricks. Torn and restored paper, some rope tricks, milk pitcher etc, standard tricks you can buy in any magic shop. With magic the game is a little different than with circus acts. Many professional magicians makes a good living from selling their original ideas and the workings of effects, often complete with suggested patter and presentation.
As we all know its not enough to do a magic trick, or juggle three balls, or balance an ax on your chin, to make a crowd like you and bookings fill your calender. There is more to it than that. Many people say it and I heard it first from my dad, the Great Santini:

"It is not what you do, but how you do it that matters."

Ultimately people don't care about whether you can juggle the three machetes, or make the little red silk disappear, but if they like you and you care about it, then you can make them care too. So it's not enough to have an act, you need to work on the presentation. Make it ring true for an audience. Whether you learnt it from a magic book or you "created it all," it must be real so that when you present it it becomes genuine. If you manage that your act will become Truth for the crowd, and Crowds love Truth.
To do so you have to do more than just present a series of tricks. You need to have thought about what it is you want to achieve. Consider what you want the Crowd to be left with after they have seen it.
Of course if juggling or magic is only going to be your hobby or you are only interested in it for the sake of the art, then all bets are off, you can then spend as much time as you want going in any direction you want. But if you do want to use these skills to connect with a crowd you need to think of how to make your acts go beyond mere presentation of skill and become engaging for an audience.
This is a very difficult task, particularly if you're just starting out, therefor it is OK even recommended, or at least accepted, for Novice Showmen to mine material from the collective pool of stock tricks and acts. But it is important to remember that unless you graduate from the tried and tested routines and put your own personal stamp on them, transform them so that YOU become the main part of the act, not your tricks, you will have trouble getting recognition as an artist and often you'll also have trouble getting other work than tiny shows at provincial shopping malls. Not to say there is not great art and good times to be had at such places.

Aksdal Shopping centre.

I cut my teeth at places like Aksdal Senter. A shopping mall in a tiny village not too far from where I grew up, not so much a village as a cluster of houses next to the intersection of highway that goes to Stavanger and Oslo. Doing those shows strengthened the Funny Bones I now stand on. But I wanted more than that. I took the lessons and moved on. I found my own style, it took a long time, but I found it. And if I can find it, anyone can.
As the song says: "If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere."

(Although said about a slightly bigger city than Aksdal...)

Inspiring words from Austin Kleon. Worth checking out!

Here is a key excerpt from the gloriously enlightening movie Funny Bones about this particular issue of borrowing to get a head start and the terrible fact of life that many of our fellow performers never goes beyond this initial Novice Showman stage. They never find a Master, a mentor that can take them under their wing and show them the ropes, to make them Apprentice Showmen. On our own we stumble blindly in the dark. Learning and to some extent stealing from our idols can make us who we are. But the important thing is to steal like an artist: copy, combine and transform. Don't rip off.

The following is a conversation between Oliver Platt as Tommy Fawkes as he learns that his dad, Mr Originality himself stole material. The father is played by Jerry Lewis.

Mr Originality stole material?

"Why did you steal their whole act?

Because you loved them so much?"                  

"No, because I wanted a new act

that no one had seen in the States.                  

I was ambitious. Is that a crime? 

Did you never steal material, son?                  

I knew their act.

It was a way in for me. Just a way in.                  

I did it a couple of years,

then I became a joke man.

Let me tell you something straight.

Tommy Fawkes in his fathers footsteps.

About what kills me.                  

It kills me that I got lazy,

using writers, not using me.                  

We were funny! We didn't have to tell

funny stories. We were funny.

We had funny bones!                   

And what kills me most is watching

my own son flop time after time.                  

However much I spent on writers and

coaches, it hasn't worked for you.                  

It's like you're too educated

to be funny.                   

All this analysis. I did that!                 

There are two types of comedians.
                
A funny bones comedian,

and a non-funny bones comedian.             

They're both funny.

One is funny, the other tells funny.                  

And Tommy...

It's time you knew...and this

kills me the most,                

You're not funny."

Circus to Save the World

Reg Bolton was an Australian doctor of social circus. His PhD Why circus work is an important addition to understanding how uniquely suited our Craft is suited to help young people develop into healthy human beings.
The following article is a keynote speech he held in Sarasota, Florida, USA for the American Youth Circus Organization in 2001.
You can find this and more of Reg's articles and thoughts here. 


Circus to save the world

Some people think that Circus in a Suitcase was my first book, but when I was an undergraduate student, I wrote a much more significant book. It was called 'Several Ways to Save the World', but unfortunately I lost it, and that's probably the root cause of all the trouble we're in now. So we'll have to start again from scratch.

Mike Moloney, who is an Australian who pioneered Circus work in Belfast, told me a wonderful story. There's a Women's Jail in Belfast, as well as the Men's. You are aware of the troubles in Belfast, with all the shootings and revenge shootings. Lots of men in jail, but few women. I think only about twenty and Mike Moloney was in there doing Theatre. He wanted to do some Circus as well, and he actually rigged a trapeze in the central courtyard of the Women's Jail. They were all invited to have a go at it. One or two of them had a go, and one stayed with it. A nineteen-year-old girl, and she started learning all the moves, and she started swinging. One by one, the other women gave up their alternative rest breaks to come and watch this one girl just swinging on the trapeze, just getting further each day, more fluid and more bird like. And he said the effect on that jail, on these incarcerated women was just miraculous; their spirits just soared every time this one girl sailed through the air.
We all know this magic can happen, and that's just one example. And yet, every one of us has experienced people saying, "Oh well, it's only Circus!" It's unbelievable. They say "You're just clowning around". I've had this all my life, and people say it's so shallow, so tawdry. Well, I've got a theory about that as well. In brief, it's about the Surface of Circus. Think about the Circus and the surfaces. You take an ordinary field. One day it's grass next day it's sawdust, and then it's grass again, it's gone. Our 'cathedral' here is skin-deep, then it's the real world outside. What do you see of the performers? You see the surface, you see the leotard, the sequins, the clown's face-paint, and that's all. Then, when it's gone, all you see is the poster, peeling off the wall, it's just the surface.
Do we want them to see beyond the surface? Or are we quite happy to let them think what they want to think? I say that because I'm fed up with saying, "There's a lot more to it than you think. This is really deep." They say "Oh Yeah," and yawn. They don't want to know. We don't have to tell them. We just have to make the surface pretty brilliant, and just leave it at that.

Now, one of your famous philosophers, and writers, Ernest Hemingway said, "The Circus is the only spectacle I know of, that when you are watching it, has the quality of a truly happy dream". I often thought it's a bit mundane, a bit banal, it's not like 'May all Your Days be Circus Days' and 'The Greatest Show on Earth'. "Has the quality of a truly happy dream…" The more I thought about it the more I realized he's got it absolutely spot on. Because think of the unhappy dreams. Think of nightmares. Think of the symbols that you get in dreams. As Jung's theory of the collective unconscious suggests, we all seem to have the same sort of dreams. When we were sitting out here last night, watching the Circus, we saw some of the things on this list of absolute nightmare phobias.
Fear of falling. We saw them up there, but they didn't fall.
Fear of exposure (being out in the middle with everybody looking at you). It's what we do.
Fear of meeting wild animals. People do that on our behalf. They don't get eaten. Well, apart from my friend Geoffrey Lennon, who's now officially a half-assed lion trainer. The lion's bit his bum a week ago Saturday. Geoffrey Lennon, I dedicate this short talk to you.
Fear of unstable ground. Have you ever been in an earthquake, or felt tremors? It's weird. Yet here are people standing on rolling globes, and teeter boards.
Look up your Jung and your Freud, and you'll find all the symbols in dreams - ropes, knives, ladders, fire ….. They recur in dreams all the time. Yet these are the things we live with. It's what we do.
And finally, let's look at clowns and how close clowns are to our dreams. Dreams of humiliation. Dreams of being with a big boss, with whom you have no power, dreams of being chased. Dreams of wearing the wrong clothes. How was it when we were seven years old, and we were wearing the untrendy gear? How deeply humiliating that was. Clowns always wear the wrong clothes. Dreams of making a social mistake, like using the wrong knife and fork, yet clowns do it compulsively. They have this total and irrevocable inability to get things right.
Circus takes us into our worst dreams, yet act after act gives us a happy ending.
Circus as a Metaphor. You know how they say "We don't need a circus in this school, it's a Circus already, Ho, ho, ho." Don't you hate that? "'This company is a Circus. We've got a lot of clowns around here". I've looked this up. It seems it is an American who first used this expression "This company runs like a three ring circus" This is meant to be derogatory! If only!
If only a company could run like a Circus. If only the boss could one day announce the most astonishing and unlikely policy or agenda like "Now we are going to….." and then he steps aside… and then they do it.! If only …..
If only a company had a multi-cultural policy that they really believed in, and if they didn't have people of other nations, they'd invent them! We invent them. If we haven't got foreigners…. What was the name of the Flying Act here last night? 'The Flying Gabianos'. Sounds multi-cultural to me. So if we haven't got them, we invent them.
If only, if only this company could lift its entire staff, its building, and all its operations over night, and go to another place and perform for a whole new clientele, that's what we do. They call themselves a Circus. They've got no business. If only, in a company, every single employee did the thing they were good at, and did it well - did it so well that you could truly believe that no human being has ever done it that well before. Imagine that in a company. That's what we do in the Circus. And imagine that with every single product that they put out, the public stands up and claps. And they've got the cheek to call themselves a Circus.
My theme is Circus to Save the World. Easy enough. Well, it can be. Circus is essentially generous, it's giving, it's caring and it's co-operative. What do we see in the world of cut-throat business out there? Competition, aggression, predation, annihilation.
Consumption, there's a funny thing. We hardly consume anything. We put up our tent, we do our business and we go away. When I think of consumption, I think of the golf courses that eat Hawaii, I think of office buildings dominating our cities, I think of jet-skis, I think of off-road vehicles. When I think of consumption, and of things that consume, I think of cancer, fire and locusts. They are the only things that used to consume when I was a boy, and now we're all urged to be consumers. Buy thankfully WE are not, we're essentially givers rather than takers.
Now, as you know I'm always interviewing people, and the question I most often ask is 'Why is Circus Good for Young People?' Another famous American philosopher, Whitney Houston, has summed it up "I believe that children are out future". Well, children are in trouble now. You don't know you are. I'm an old bloke, and maybe old blokes have always said this about children; but I think there's more of a threat to children now than there ever has been. Children are the most resilient, adaptable and wonderful people but, there is a pincer movement, there is a conspiracy against the culture of children. There is a cultural genocide going on. You know how we are always looking back, saying, "How could we let that happen? Slavery, women not having the vote, wiping out indigenous peoples. How could we have let that happen?" At the time it seemed the right thing to do. What are we going to see when we look back here? We're going to look at consumption, and we're going to look at the genocide of childhood. And who are the perpetrators? I'll tell you who they are - the Media , they are being used but they're also doing it, TV companies, film companies. Shoe manufacturers! Insurance companies. They take down playgrounds. They don't let you actually have any fun. You've got computers, sport OWNERS, and that's before you even bring in the pornography and the drug cartels that see children as a very nice market or product.
OK Here's the answer. I'm in the home straight now.
My view of what childhood should be (and I was lucky, I had a great one).
These are the four things that every child needs to do, and people are stopping them from doing it.
Take Risks.
Jessica (Hentoff) has a lovely thing she wrote in her publicity.
Something like -
"You fall down in order to learn how to stay on your feet". You cannot actually learn anything without taking risks. It's up to us to make sure they're not really taking risks. But the kids, once a day, have got to have their hearts in their mouths. There's a fellow in New Zealand, called Peter Birlie, who talks about the 'vertigo moment'. If you don't get that vertigo moment… Watch kids at the funfair. They go straight for the scariest, upside down, up and down things. Kids actually need a vertigo moment. Little babies need to be thrown in the air and held upside down, and swung around. Everybody needs it. We've stopped it. It's stopped happening. They don't even do it at school. They take down the swings. They don't jump from trees. They're mollycoddled in this cotton-wool existence. This is the insurance companies part in the conspiracy; and what happens? All these vertigo moments that you didn't have, you still need. So you hit adolescence; the hormones kick in, and you make up for lost time. You go for every risk you can. And that's why so many people are stealing cars, shooting up drugs and everything else. I think it's a direct cause and effect.
What do we do in the Circus? We give them risks. We swing them upside down, we chuck them around. Or they chuck themselves around. We give them risk.
The second thing every child needs. They need to show off. Every child needs to show off. "Hey Mum, look at me! Hey Dad, I can do this!" They need to do that. Sure they still do it, but there's more and more conformity. They don't show off.
I'm talking about showing off the best you can possibly be, in a controlled and safe environment, so people go "Yay! You are the goods!" Children need that, and what else do we do in Circus but that? You never say at the end of a Circus "You lost, the other team won." No. You won. You won every show. You won nearly every training. So that's another thing we're doing in Circus.
The third one, that every child needs; Trusting and touching. They both mean the same thing to me. I don't say "Fight for the right to touch", but perhaps I should; the right to touch and be touched. , Look at baby animals, every mammal spends time rolling over each other, and adult animals, cattle, sheep etc, they love to brush against each other as they're moving along. We don't. We separate things. We put children in shoes as soon as possible. They don't touch they earth, they don't touch each other, they don't touch us, we're not allowed to touch them. It is so phoney. So what do we do in Circus? "You hold that, you hold there," we bend down, we lift them up, we push them, we twist them. They jump up on us. The number of Children's Circuses I've seen where I'll be busy talking to the trainers, and suddenly, Wham! the trainers are suddenly covered in children, who use them as climbing frames. To me that is so wholesome, and so natural, and you don't often see that with the 'coach' in the basketball team, you know, they come in and give him a big cuddle. Maybe they should. But what you performers did last night, which is so beautiful to watch, is the way that you're holding each other, and lifting each other and depending on each other. You're learning a much more trustful way to look at the world.
So we've had the risking, the showing off, the trusting.
Here's the last thing all children have to do. They have to Dream. They have to have their dreams and to aspire. And they do. But what do they aspire to now? A Nintendo game machine, getting to the next level. Or the shoes, or the basket ball cards. All these things that children often are obsessed about, and hassling their parents about, and causing domestic strife about, are getting dumped on them by advertisers. They still do, deep down, dream to climb up to there, walk across there, or swing round there. Most people in the world will say, "Don't do that. Don't do that, I'll buy you a packet of basket-ball cards if you don't do that! Here we're doing the exact opposite. We're saying, "Yes, do it, please do it!" That's the fourth thing. We're actually allowing people to dream, and we're making their dreams come true.
OK, finally, the story about my plumber. You see, where I live in Perth, I've got this house, with a garden, and a swimming pool which is now a pond where we've got frogs. Here's the shed where I keep all my gear. I needed a tap for the hosepipe in the garden. So I called this plumber, and he came in with his bag of tools, and I said I want it down there, on the outside wall. Anyway, he looked up, and there are all the unicycles hanging up, in the shed, and he said "Wow! Are you in show-business." I said "Yes, sort of, but is there enough water pressure to reach down here and get this tap going?" He said "Oh gee, I always wanted to be in show-business" "Yes", I said, "and I want a really strong tap, because I've got bad garden habits, and I tend to yank that hose, and I don't want it coming off." He said "I'm so jealous. I wish I could be in Show-business". I felt like saying "Get outa here and send me someone who really wants to be a plumber!"
I didn't book him again, but the next plumber I got was fantastic. He loved plumbing. He's got me down on my hand and knees, looking in that dirty little cupboard under the sink, enthusing about the new flange he has put on the u-bend. "Oh yes," I'd say, totally inspired, "What a u-bend, what a flange!"
That man's my plumber! He has accidentally or deliberately slipped into what I accidentally or deliberately slipped in to, that is 'The Designer Life'. I think most of you have the recipe already, (I know Dave Finnigan's got it),
"You know what you like, you know what you're good at, and that's all you do.." The phone never stops ringing. Everybody wants you. Because you're the one who likes what you do, you know what you like, and you're good at it.
So if you like it, and you're no good at it - don't touch it.
If you're good at it, but you don't like it - don't touch it.
Just think yourself blessed that you're not like most people out there, who don't like it, and they're no good at it. Yet that's what they do. It's so sad.

So you're the blessed ones. You're the angels. They say that poets are "the unacknowledged legislators of mankind"- but now there's us. We've got the opportunities, and we've got the responsibilities. Yes, we can save the world. We can save the world by living the designer life, and by spreading the idea.
Some people say the Circus is the "Other", the mysterious, the weird stuff. That's what most people say about the Circus. Well, let them, they're jealous of everything they do. We won't tease them, we'll entertain them, and we'll make them feel better. Don't be intimidated by anything they say. They are so jealous of us.
We are astonishingly, incredibly lucky.

Neil Gaiman's Advice for Young Artists

For those of you just beginning your journey down the Way of the Showman the share immensity of becoming an artist can sometimes feel paralyzingly difficult. The following talk, although delivered to graduates of 2012 class of the University of the Arts in Philadelphia delivered by Neil Gaiman might just be the words you need to hear.




Below follows a short, point form distillation of his ideas. The list was compiled by Open Culture.

1. Embrace the fact that you’re young. Accept that you don’t know what you’re doing. And don’t listen to anyone who says there are rules and limits.
2. If you know your calling, go there. Stay on track. Keep moving towards it, even if the process takes time and requires sacrifice.
3. Learn to accept failure. Know that things will go wrong. Then, when things go right, you’ll probably feel like a fraud. It’s normal.
4. Make mistakes, glorious and fantastic ones. It means that you’re out there doing and trying things.
5. When life gets hard, as it inevitably will, make good art. Just make good art.
6. Make your own art, meaning the art that reflects your individuality and personal vision.
7. Now a practical tip. You get freelance work if your work is good, if you’re easy to get along with, and if you’re on deadline. Actually you don’t need all three. Just two.
8. Enjoy the ride, don’t fret the whole way. Stephen King gave that piece of advice to Neil years ago.
9. Be wise and accomplish things in your career. If you have problems getting started, pretend you’re someone who is wise, who can get things done. It will help you along.
10. Leave the world more interesting than it was before.

His main point is not to worry about what others think, just make Good Art.

"Sometimes life is hard. Things go wrong — and in life, and in love, and in business, and in friendship, and in health, and in all the other ways in which life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do: Make good art. I’m serious. Husband runs off with a politician? Make good art. Leg crushed and then eaten by a mutated boa constrictor? Make good art. IRS on your trail? Make good art. Cat exploded? Make good art. Someone on the internet thinks what you’re doing is stupid, or evil, or it’s all been done before? Make good art. "

(Quote from Brain Pickings.)

Neil Gaiman on Feedback

{un-numbered Lesson from the Way of the Showman}

The following quote about how to interpret the feedback people give on your work has given me a whole new way of interpreting what people say about my work. To improve our writing, performing and creating we must seek advice from others, but getting others input on our work can sometimes be confusing since if you ask five people you will get five different opinions on what isn't working and what to do to fix it. Here is what Neil Gaiman has to say about it, hope it Illuminates you.

“Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.”

This advice came from the list below. 

1. Write.
2. Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.
3. Finish what you’re writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.
4. Put it aside. Read it pretending you’ve never read it before. Show it to friends whose opinion you respect and who like the kind of thing that this is.
5. Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.
6. Fix it. Remember that, sooner or later, before it ever reaches perfection, you will have to let it go and move on and start to write the next thing. Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.
7. Laugh at your own jokes.
8. The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it’s definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it ­honestly, and tell it as best you can. I’m not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.

(From Open Culture)

George Carl

When a certain kind of person sees my tennis racket act they immediately think of George Carl. The hysterical little man with the sticky fingers which got more laughs than any from his persistent struggles with his microphone and stand. Here he is.

pic - Ramirez Family Workshop

George Carl (7 May 1916 – 1 January 2000) was a "vaudevillian" style comic & clown. Carl was born in Ohio, and started his comedy career traveling with a variety of circuses during his teenage years. In time, Carl would become internationally famous as a clown and visual comedian.

Wikipedia

There is very little info about the life and times of this great clown available online. If anyone knows of any I would be very interested in hearing about it. I know he was the resident clown at the Crazy Horse Paris for several years, but don't know when... That said, I am proud to have performed at Crazy Horse too, following in the footsteps of such luminaries as George Carl, Finn Jon, and Otto Wesley.

Buy this poster here...

George Carl made his film debut in Funny Bones. He was 79 when the movie was made in 1995. The film is absolutely tremendous and a must see for any Illuminated Showman or circus enthusiast.
In it George plays a version of his silent stage character which only speaks once and when it does it is beautiful.

"Our suffering is special.                  

The pain we feel is

worse than anyone else.
                   
But the sunrise we see is

more beautiful than anyone else.                 

The Parkers is...like the moon.                   

There's one side forever dark.

Invisible. As it should be.                  

But remember, the dark moon

draws the tides also.                  

Our time has come."                  

"That's the most wonderful thing

You've said in years."       

"That's the only thing I said in years."

Full transcript of the movie here.

George Carl in the middle.

Every one is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.

Mark Twain

Here is a beautiful high energy, tight version of the act from the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson

"George Carl around the mid-1950's acting up in the yard with his wife and brother. Somewhere in Ohio."

"Uncle George (George Carl) back in the 60's practicing in our front yard in Mineral Ridge, Ohio. In this video he demonstrates his innate acrobatic abilities." (Both these gorgeous super 8 films have been put up on youtube by wilberwisom.)

From about nine minuets thirty, George comes back and does an encore. A clown on a tightrope... Also he does more of his silly walking both in the beginning and the end.

This is a rare glimpse of Goerge and others (Francis Brunn,Natahlie Enterline,George Carl,Rudy Coby,Michael Moschen,Karen Carmichael) in a home movie / road movie / behind the scenes look at a show which toured Germany in 1992.  (youtube channel of mikechirrick)
George appears at about 2.20.

The Oldest Trick in the Book

Magicians?

A few weeks ago we used a picture of some 4000 year old engravings from an Egyptian tomb in a post. Then we focused on the jugglers. This time we take a look at the magicians, if that is what they are.

"The cemetery — called Beni Hasan (also Bani Hasan, or Beni-Hassan) — contains 150 tombs, and the image of the jugglers is found in what is known as the 15th tomb. The tomb dates back to around 4,000 years ago, between 1994 and 1781 B.C.  

 The markings seems to depict the first ever visual representation of Showmen. Last time the picture showed jugglers, but on the same wall there are also two figures that could be seen as magicians doing one of the, literally, the oldest trick in the book, in this case a wall.
Even if we disregard the interpretation of the hieroglyphs as magicians the cups and balls still remains the earliest trick depicted. In a 15th century painting by Hieronymus Bosch we see the trick portrayed so there is no doubt of what's going on.

The Conjuror - circa 1474

In the following clip the brilliant magical duo of Penn and Teller pays homage to the archeological depictions and a trick with a very rich history, with characteristically irreverent and clever versions of the routine.

Dario Fo - The Birth of the Jongleur

Dario Fo.

A jongleur was an itinerant medieval entertainer proficient in juggling, acrobatics, music, and recitation so in other words a Showman.
In 1997 Dario Fo was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his book Mistero Buffo, Comic Mysteries. But it wasn't just a book, it was ancient stories Fo had collected and rewritten into one-person plays. In his performances he acted out all the roles in the tradition of a medieval jongleur who presents the underdog's disrespect for authority. The Nobel Prize press release describe their reason as giving him the award for "emulating the jesters of the Middle Ages in scourging authority and upholding the dignity of the downtrodden."

"He if anyone merits the epithet of jester in the true meaning of that word. With a blend of laughter and gravity he opens our eyes to abuses and injustices in society and also the wider historical perspective in which they can be placed. Fo is an extremely serious satirist with a multifaceted oeuvre. His independence and clear-sightedness have led him to take great risks, whose consequences he has been made to feel while at the same time experiencing enormous response from widely differing quarters."

Mixing the sacred and the burlesque, the episodes subvert accepted wisdom and challenge entrenched authority. Among the play’s twelve episodes the a key text is the Birth of a Jongeleur, an excerpt of this play on the Nobel's Committee's website. Her is the story in full, prefaced by some words about the text by Dario Fo himself.

Fresco from 1100 showing a
Jongleur in the role of drunkard.

"What does this piece relate? We see a jongleur, explaining how, before he became a jongleur, he was a peasant, and that it was Christ who changed him into a jongleur. How did it happen that Christ gave him this new profession? It was because he used to own land, but a landowner tried to take the land away from him. I say no more, because there's not really much that I can add. The piece speaks for itself. Don't worry if at first you don't understand some of what I say. The sense, the gestures and sounds inolved will help you. By my gestures and by the sounds of the piece, you will easily grasp the meaning of this."

The following piece is based on a comic mystery first written down in the thirteenth century.

THE BIRTH OF THE JONGLEUR
(Translated by Ed Emery in 1983.)

Kind people, gather round and listen. The jongleur is here! I am the jongleur. I leap and pirouette, and make you laugh. I make fun of those in power, and I show you how puffed up and conceited are the big-shots who go around making wars in which we are the ones who get slaughtered. I reveal them forwhat they are. I pull out the plug, and... pssss... they deflate. Gather round, for now is the time and place that I begin to clown and teach you. I tumble, I sing and I joke! Look how my tongue whirls, almost like a knife. Remember that. But I have not always been... Well, I would like to tell you how it was that I came to be.

I was not born a jongleur; I didn't suddenly turn up as I am now, with a sudden gust from the skies and, hopla, there I was: 'Good day... Hello'. No! I am the result of a miracle! A miracle which was carried out on me. Do you believe me? This is how it came about! I was born a peasant. A peasant? Yes, a real countryman. I was happy, I was sad, I had no land. No! I worked as all of us work in these valleys, wherever I could. And one day I came by a mountain, a mountain all of rock. It was nobody's. I found that out. I asked people. 'No! Nobody wants this mountain!'
Well, I went up to its peak, and I scratched with my nails, and I saw that there was a little bit of earth there, and I saw that there was a little trickle of water coming down. So I began to scratch further. I went down to the riverbank, and I wore my fingers to the bone bringing earth up onto this mountain. And my children and my wife were there. My wife is sweet, sweet and fair, with two round breasts, and a gentle way of walking that reminds you of a heifer as she moves. Oh, she is beautiful! I love her, and it gives me pleasure to speak of her.
Anyway, I carried earth up in my own hands, and the grass grew so fast! Pfff... ! It grew of its own accord. You've no idea how beautiful it was! It was like gold dust! I would stick in my hoe, and pfff... a tree sprang forth. That earth was a miracle! A marvel! There were poplars, oaks and other trees everywhere. I sowed them when the moon was right; I knew what had to be done, and there, sweet, fine, handsome crops grew. There was chicory, thistles, beans, turnips, there was everything. For me, for us!
Oh, how happy I was! We used to dance, and then it would rain for days on end, and then the sun would blaze, and I would come, and go, and the moons were always right, and there was never too much wind, or too much mist. It was beautiful, beautiful! It was our land. This set of terrace was really beautiful. Every day I built another one. It was like the tower of Babel, beautiful, with all these terraces. It was paradise, paradise on earth! I swear it. And all the peasants used to pass by, saying:
'That's amazing, look what you've managed to bring forth out of this pile of rocks! How stupid that I never thought of that!'

And they were envious. One day, the lord of the whole valley passed by. He took a look and said:
'Where did this tower spring up from? Whose is this land?'
'It's mine,' I said. 'I made it myself, with these hands. It was nobody's.'
'Nobody's? That 'Nobody's' is a word that doesn't exist. It's mine!'
'No! It's not yours! I've even been to the lawyer, and he told me it was nobody's. I asked the priest, and he said it was nobody's. And I built it up, piece by piece.'
'It's mine, and you have to give it to me.'
'I cannot give it to you, sir. I cannot go and work for others.'
'I'll pay you for it;I'll give you money. Tell me how much you want.'
'No! No, I don't want money, because if you give me money, then I'll not be able to buy other land with the money that you give me, and I'll have to go an work for others again. No, I don't want to. I won't.'
'Give it to me.'
'No!'
Then he laughed, and went away. The next day the priest came, and he told me:
'The land belongs to he Lord of the Valley. Be sensible, give it up. Don't play the fool. Beware, because he is a powerful, evil lord. Give up this land. In the name of God, be sensible!'
'No!' I told him. 'I won't.'
And I made a rude gesture at im with my hand. Then the lawyer arrived too. He was sweating, by heaven, when he came up the mountain to find me.
'Be sensible. There are laws... and you should know that you can't... that, for you...'
'No! No!'
And I made a rude gesture at him too, and he went away, swearing.
But the lord didn't give up. No! He began by coming on hunting expeditions, and he sent all the hares chasing over my land. With his horses and his friends, he galloped to and fro across my land, breaking down my hedges. Then one day, he set fire to all my land. It was summer; a drought. He set fire to the whole of my mountain, and burned everything, even my animals and my house. But I wouldn't leave! I waited, and that night it began to rain. After the rain, I began to clear up, and put the fence posts back in position, and replace stones, and bring up fresh earth, and water everything. I was determined, by heaven, that I wouldn't move from there! And I did not move!
But one day he arrived, along with all his soldiers, and he was laughing. We were in the fields, my children, my wife and I. We were working. He arrived. He got down from his horse. He undid his breeches. He came over to my wife, grabbed her, threw her to the ground, ripped off her skirt and... I tried to move, but the soldiers held me fast. And he leapt upon her, and took her as if she were a cow. And I and the children had to stand there, with our eyes bursting from our heads, watching... I moved forward, with a leap. I managed to free myself. I took a hoe, and I shouted:
'You bastards!'
'Stop,' my wife cried. 'Don't do it. That's all they want, that's exactly what they are waiting for. If you raise your stick, then they will kill you. Don't you understand? They want to kill you and take away your land. That's all they want. He is bond to defend himself. It's not worth taking your stand against him. You have no honour to defend. You're poor, you're a peasant, a country person, you cannot go thinking of honour and dignity. That is stuff for rich people, for lords and nobles They are entitled to get angry if people rape their wives and daughters. But you're not! Let itAnd I began to weep, weeping and looking all around. The children were weeping too. And the sodiers, with the lord of the valley, suddenly went off, laughing, happy and satisfied. We wept, how we wept! We could not even look each other in the eye. And when we went into the village, they began throwing rocks and stones at us. They shouted:
'Oh you ox, you who don't have the strength to defend your honour, because you have no honour. You are an animal. The lord has mounted your wife, and you stood there, wihout saying a word, for a handful of earth. You wretch!'
And when my wife went around the village:
'Whore, cow!' they shouted after her. And then they ran off. They would not even let her go intochurch. Nobody would let her! And the children couldn't go out in the village without everyone picking on them. And nobody would even look us in the eye. My wife ran off! I never saw her again; I don't know where she ended up. And my children wouldn't look at me. They fell ill, and wouldn't even cry. They died. I was left alone, alone, with this land. I didn't know what to do. One evening, I took a piece of rope, and threw it over a rafter. I put the noose around my neck, and said to myself:
'Right. Now I am going to end it all, now!'

I was just about to do it, just about to hang myself, when I felt a and on my shoulder. I turned round, and saw a fellow with big eyes and a pale face.
He says to me: 'Could you give me something to drink?'
'I ask you, in heaven's name, is this really the moment o come asking somebody for something to drink, when he's just about to hang himself?'
I look at him, and see that he too has the face of a poor wretch. Then I look further, and see that there are two mor men, and they too have faces full of suffering.
'Alright, I'll give you something to drink. And then I'll hang myself.'
So I go to get them something to drink, and I take a good look at them:
'Instead of something to drink, you people look as if you could do with something to eat! It's been days and days since I last cooked anything to eat... But anyway, if you want, there is food.'
I took a pan and put it on the fire to heat up some broad beans. I gave them some, one bowl apiece, and how they ate! I, personally, wasn't very hungry. 'I'll wait till they've finshed eating,' I thought, 'and then I'll hang myself.' Anyway, while they were eating, the one with the biggest eyes, who looked like a right poor devil, began to smile. He said:
'That's a terrible story, hat you're going to hang yourself. I know why you want to do it, though. You have lost everything, your wife, your children, and all you are left with is your land. Yes, I know how it is! But if I were you, I woldn't do it.'
And he carried on eating. How he ate! Then, in the end, he laid aside the utensils, and said:
'Do you know who I am?'
'No, but I've got an idea that you might be Jesus Christ.'
'Well done! You've guessed correctly. And this is St Peter, and that over there is St Mark.'
'Pleased to meet you! And what are you doing in these parts?'
'My friend, you've given me something to eat, and now I'm going to give you something to say.'
'Something to say? What is this 'something'?'
'You poor fellow! It's right that you have held onto your land; it is right that you don't want bosses over you; it is right that you have had the strength not to give in; it's right... I like you. You're a good man, a strong man. But you're missing something which is also right, and which you should have: here and here. (He points to his forehead and to his mouth) You shouldn't remain here stuck to your land. You should move around the country, and when people throw stones at you, you should tell them, and help them to understand, and deflate that great bladder of a landlord. You should deflate him with the sharpness of your tongue, and drain him of all his poison and his stinking bile. You must crush these nobles, these priests, and all those who surround them: notaries, lawyers, etc. Not only for your own good, for your own land, but also for those like yourself who don't have land, who have nothing, and whose only right is the right to suffer, and who have no dignity to boast of. Teach them to survive with their brains, not just with their hands!'
'But don't you understand? I am not able. I have a tongue which refuses to budge. I stumble over every word. I have no education, and my brain is weak and useless. How am I supposed to do he things you suggest, and go about speaking to other people?'
'Don't worry. You will now see a miracle.'
He took my head in his hands, and drew me to him. Then he said:

'I am Jesus Christ. I have come to give you the power of speech. And this tongue of yours will lash, and will slash like a sword, deflating inflated balloons all over the land. You will speak out against bosses, and crush them, so that others can understand and learn, so that others can laugh at them and make fun of them, because it is only with laughter that the bosses will be destroyed. When you laugh at the rulers, the ruler goes from being a mountain, to being a little molehill, and then a nothingness. Here, I shall give you a kiss, and that will enable you to speak.' He kissed me on the mouth. He kissed me for a long time. And suddenly I felt my tongue dart about inside my head, and my brain began to move, and my legs began to move with a mind of their own, and I went out in the streets of the village, and began to shout:

'Gather round, people! Gather round! hear ye! The jongleur is here! I am going to play a satire for you. I am going to joust with the lord of the land, for he is a great balloon, and I am going to burst him with the sharpness of my tongue. I shall tell you everything, how things come and go, and how it is not God who steals! It is those who steal and go unpunished... it is those who make big books of laws... They are the ones... And we must speak out, speak out. Listen, people – these rulers must be broken, they must be crushed...!

Monty Python Comedy Lecture

From their Live at the Hollywood Bowl we get an informative physical comedy lecture. The format of the comedy lecture has been feature earlier on this blog, it is a show/act structure that we very much enjoy.
Featuring lessons on planks, cream pies, banana peel and prat falls - all the good stuff.

Money, Shows and Happiness

When watching the following TED talk about how, contrary to popular belief, money actually can buy happiness, I thought it seemed relevant to an important aspect in the Showman's Craft.
To understand how, we need to think of spending money on others as akin to the sharing experience of giving a performance. We also have to look at money from a slightly different perspective.

Michael Norton tells us that if the money is spent on others we not only feel better but perform better. He describes, flippantly, an experiment where a dodge ball team were given envelopes of money with instructions to spend it on each other. They reported that they felt happier when being generous with their team mates but also began dominating their league. They felt closer and happier and thus achieved better results as a team.
These findings replicates what is taught in the Shoman's Craft; by seeing a Show as an act of giving the Showman will not only feel better but perform better.

This is the phenomenon of sociability at work. Nature guides us to better performance and more enjoyment by rewarding us with good feelings when we do things that benefit us such as socializing and sharing with others. This is one of the underlying phenomena which makes us humans enjoy shows.

Fundamentally the Showman's Craft is to mold time and focus given to them by a Crowd. If the Crowd believes they got more back than they put in, the Show has been a success. They must feel like they got their money's worth and that it was a good investment, ie. it made them feel good, forget time, made them think, or whatever else a Spectator might find enjoyable. In this exchange of time and focus everyone gains. This beneficial process is part of what makes us human.

Money

When a professional Showman performs he gets paid and by what Michael Norton says; those who pay the Showman feel happier for it. As a Showman myself I like to hear that. I had never considered my invoices to cause happiness, although I can easily imagine that the smiles on peoples faces after a street show as demonstrating their genuine enjoyment in the paying process.

To understand what money is on a deeper level, we can see the process of paying for a show as an exchange of energy.
A street show, where a performer gathers a Crowd, does a Show and then gets paid by his onlookers, can be seen as the prototype of show business. This has been a core structure of early performances on streets and market squares throughout time.
In such a show the Showman gives his energy to the Crowd and after the show they pay him money. Their money is what they got from their employers as a symbol of the energy they expended doing work for him. It could perhaps also be seen as a battery. Printed paper and metal discs that somehow retains the energy they gave their employer through their work. By offering their money to the performer after the show the Crowd gives the street performer tokens of their energy.

So if we look at the exchange of money as an energy exchange this Ted talk gives scientific evidence for what Showmen have known for aeons, giving is good for us. Altruism, social interaction, and sharing makes us feel good and makes life meaningful. It is a process where every part benefits, a good times machine. It is our Craft.

In defence of the Comic Actor

Donald O'Connor in a classic scene from Singing In The Rain a great all singing, all talking Showman. Great physical comedy

The Task of Art

Borges.

"I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities that I have visited, all my ancestors."

Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) was a truly great writer. His short stories are masterworks of imagination and structure. They cleverly twist and morph our ideas of what literature and story is and can be. He expresses the beautiful cyclic connection between reality and fiction by reminding us of the "character of unreality in all literature." In this way he is relevant for the Illuminated Showman, for the nature of literature is also the nature of the Carnival; make-believe more real than reality itself.
Literature and Carnival Arts are human creations, made by man for man so per definition; artificial.
What Borges shows with exceptional beauty through his work is how this artificiality isn't something to be shunned or explained away but rather something to be playfully enjoyed and explored.

At the end of his life, now completely blind, he saw more clearly than ever the task of art and he sums it up beautifully and poignant what the art's role in the world is.

"The task of art is to transform what is continuously happening to us, to transform all these things into symbols, into music, into something which can last in man’s memory. That is our duty. If we don’t fulfill it, we feel unhappy. A writer or any artist has the sometimes joyful duty to transform all that into symbols. These symbols could be colors, forms or sounds. For a poet, the symbols are sounds and also words, fables, stories, poetry. The work of a poet never ends. It has nothing to do with working hours. Your are continuously receiving things from the external world. These must be transformed, and eventually will be transformed. This revelation can appear anytime. A poet never rests. He’s always working, even when he dreams. Besides, the life of a writer, is a lonely one. You think you are alone, and as the years go by, if the stars are on your side, you may discover that you are at the center of a vast circle of invisible friends whom you will never get to know but who love you. And that is an immense reward."

If you don't know much about Borges you could start by checking out this documentary about him called The Mirror Man.

(Thanks to Open Culture for finding this.)

Clown Instructions

Colombaioni's Clown Seminar, 1968 

Some nice visual tips on slapstick, pratfalls and so forth.
Who is the teacher?
Carlo Colombaioni is an Italian clown who worked with Fellini in several movies.

From his website.
He was born in Ancona on Novembre 30th 1933. His family was big, he had five brothers and three sisters He grow up in the world of art, full immersed with jugglers, funambulists, acrobats and clowns. Then he started with the curtain-raiser, placing side by side with the most important Italian actors, like for example Antonio De Curtis, alias Totò, until he meets the great movie director Federico Fellini, and he took part to the famous movies “La Strada(the Street)”, “I clown”, “Amarcord”, “Roma” and “Casanova”. Carlo has been a great actor and he shared his talent with persons like Dario Fo, Federico Fellini and Jerzy Grotowsky. Later he went abroad, and he started his teatral career, becoming so famous in couple with his cousin Alberto Vitali.
The duet reach the top of the success, and they start to propose their shows all over the world, in the most important theaters.
Master Carlo passed on May 15th 2008, when he was 74 years old. He had already scheduled another show in Florence on to weeks later.

Houdini's Quest for Mystery

 A Crowd can feel spiritually restored after a great show. It has all the ingredients; deep group connection and a charismatic leader standing elevated before the crowd, guiding them through mysteries and good times. It is religion, it is showbiz, it is Life.

The Crowd has witnessed magic, they have glimpsed mystery. The showman knows just how much they all long for someone to tell them, and demonstrate, with ‘undeniable proof,’ that mind reading, contacting the dead, or any other supernatural feat, is indeed possible.

As the curtains come down and the lights come up the Crowd feels closer to the Truth, whilst the Showman sometimes feel further from truth and community than ever. If you are the one giving guidance and answers, who guides you?

Eric Weisz.

Erik Weiszwas born in Budapest, Hungary on March 24, 1874. His family was Jewish and he loved his mother very much. As a young boy he read Robert-Houdin, the French father of modern magic's, autobiography. In it the aging conjuror recounts the tale of how he was sent to Africa to represent his country in a standoff between the two nation's greatest magicians.

"In 1856, the Marabouts, who controlled the will of the tribesmen by dazzling them with feats of magic, had all of Algeria on the brink of revolt. In a wise decision the colonial administration decided to try to beat the Marabouts at their own game and sent for Robert-Houdin, who had been entertaining the courts of Europe and had gained a reputation as the greatest magician in all the continent."

 (Read the full story here.)

Robert Houdin.

Robert-Houdin won the challenge in a clever use of technology. With electromagnetism and electric shocks he left the Marabouts awestruck. This chapter in Robert-Houdin's book made the young Eric Weisz decide that he wanted to become a magician. With unparallelled tenacity he set out to become the greatest magician of all time. But one can't conquer the world with a name like Eric Weiz, and like so many showmen before him he transformed himself into a Showman. Erik Weisz became Harry Houdini,who went on to become so famous his name can now be found the dictionary.

Although he started as a magician, the King of Cards,  and did a brief stint as a wildman, it was his escapes which would make him the King for which he is remembered: The King of Escapes.

Houdini as a young magician.

Houdini was very attached to his mother. This connection was so strong, Houdini feared that his mother's eventual death might drive him insane. As strange as this might sound it started a cascade of events which led our hero onto the next phase of his career; a debunker of spiritists and mediums. But where did this antagonism for spiritism come from?

The tools and demonstrations of the spiritist movement are Real Magic, meaning secular magic, the type that pulls rabbits out of hats. Effects such as tables levitating, ESP, spoon bending, and strange knocking on tables in the dark with messages from beyond, are all the domain of a branch of Real Magic called mentalism. This subdivision of magicians deal with telepathy, telekinesis, and so forth. So why did he attack fellow Craftsmen? Hasn’t a magician sworn not to divulge the secrets of magic to the Crowd?

'My two sweathearts'
 Houdini, Wife and Mother.

Houdini loved magic. He fastidiously researched the magic arts. Part of his study was a fervent collecting of any book, article, or mention of magic of any kind. He purchased several private collections and with his considerable wealth, wide acclaim and wide travel, he soon amassed perhaps the world's greatest library of magic; occult, alchemical and otherwise. But with each subsequent initiation of secular magic for the ever inquisitive, if not down right obsessive Houdini, the boundaries of supernatural magic was pushed before him.

Houdini in his famed library.

Houdini’s fear of madness hovered in the back of his mind. He began visiting asylums and graves of famous magician's and mystics. Eventually he met Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the archdeacon of Spiritualism. 

In the late 1800’s this was a great obsession of the western world. It was not presented as stage magic, this was the foundation stones for a spiritual movement. It was like a religion grown from late night magic shows in carnivals. Tricks and illusions performed in the dark, whilst the participants held hands around a table, ghostly spirit-like lights would appear, ectoplasm, a ghostly manifestation, spewed forth from the spirit's mouth and onto the table, it was a great night out. 

People would be able to talk to their loved ones who had passed on. Unsaid things and unfinished business could come to final resolution. It was beautiful and heartfelt and much needed by the Crowd, but what was the story of the the presenters of these strange shows? The Showmen who created these very peculiar shows, what did they think they were doing?

Did they believe what they did was real? Were they just fraudsters making a quick buck when the popular imagination swung into their field of expertise? And finally: Did their intent make the Crowd's experience of the seance any less real?

Then his mother died. He had worried himself sick over this and then it happened. He was grief stricken. But since he didn't immediately descend into madness, at least not so that he has to be locked up in an Asylum, Houdini dug deeper and deeper into the spiritualist movement to find one real medium amongst the fraudsters and showmen. But there was none. Each new con-man pretending to be the voice of his departed mother added to his grief.

Perhaps this is where we find why Houdini, the magician, could debunk his fellow magicians, something a magician swears not to do. Of course he was angry and disappointed, but there was more to it than that. He picked up on a subtle difference between the mediums and mentalists.

The mediums claimed not to be magicians and used their knowledge of the magic Craft to make them spiritual gurus. This is nothing new, it's been done since the dawn of time, but they abused the Showman's Craft. This made them fair game. Houdini could as a magician debunk the mediums with good conscience. 
(The very fine line of spiritual guidance using the power of tricks to move Crowds gave birth to the Shaman, Showman and perhaps religion itself.) 

Houdini also debunked spiritualists, shown here 
demonstrating how illusions could be used to make it 
seem as if he is mollifying the vengeful ghost of Abraham
Lincoln with a book on modern rail splitting techniques.

"Houdini said that no medium had convinced him of his or her genuineness, as much as he would like to believe that spiritualism is a possibility. He gave instances of media who had admitted being frauds. Many, he said, are “plain crazy.” 

New York Times, 19/5-1924

Every tale and every lead brought before him by spiritualists, Yogis or esoteric wizards would crumble before the showman’s knowledge. He sought a different magic and thought he had found it in the spiritist movement. Perhaps this is not so strange since his friend Conan Doyle was the one spinning the tricks and illusions of the séance mediums into story. I have myself been under this man's spell in his world of Sherlock Holmes. Who would not be swayed by the story telling prowess of Conan Doyle? Houdini wanted to believe, but couldn't.

There was no proof of any supernatural events having occurred that were not immediately explainable by the Craft. He really wanted to know. He wanted to discover supernatural magic so bad it increased the fervor of his search for a way to communicate with his mother on the other side. His disappointment with each successive medium began to infuriate him and turned him against the many charlatans praying on those weakened by grief and without knowledge of Real Magic. He now made himself the champion of these uninitiated people and took to the stage claiming that he would recreate any trick of any medium immediately right there on stage to prove them charlatans and cheaters.

Until the untimely end of his life Houdini never found even the tiniest shred of evidence that there was any other magic than the one that he, so spectacularly, had mastered.

 “During his life, Houdini, never escaped intogenuine magical tradition, though not for a lack of trying: a man inspired, he was also a man who never identified his inspiration. His psychic struggle that ran through his life like a ghostly parallel to his physical efforts was directed towards plumbing a great mystery.”

The Death and Resurrection Show, by Rogan Tylor.

If Houdini couldn’t find any so-called supernatural magic, if the king of magicians can’t find it, who can? Who would be better qualified to separate charlatans from the real deal? Without the knowledge of the Showman’s arts, how could anyone expect to know secular magic from miracles or supernatural events?

The truth Houdini discovered was perhaps the most terrible of all: the core of mystery is like the onion, empty but for the layers surrounding it. Peeling them back stings the eyes, tears will blind you, but if you persist to the core you will find a sweet nothing. (How Zen.) And this sweet nothing must be filled by us. We must live our lives fully aware of this absurdity. We want and crave inherent meaning in things, but upon inspection the architects of this meaning turns out to be ourselves.

This is the fate of the showman. The one who knows all the tricks of the Craft has ‘proofs’ of the impossible for the Crowd, but not for himself. He must stand alone and find a different kind of solace. 

Houdini was schooled, better than most, in the Craft. He found that the spiritists were but mirror images of himself. Where he had expected and hoped to find something more he found nothing but his own Craft. The snake bites its tale. It is perfect.

He glimpsed a truth from the Way of the Showman: there is sacrifice necessary for the good of others and this sacrifice creates real meaning for both the ones who give and those who receive. Meaning made by Man for Man, so it is artificial, but real non-the-less.

“Houdini could see from the reaction of his audiences that they expected and received much more than mere entertainment from his performances. Like him, they wanted answers to big questions; release from the doubts that plagued them; escape from the physical boundaries that imprisoned them. And they loved and worshipped him for the stupendous efforts he made on their behalf. Such a life certainly proves one thing: Showbiz, whether it likes it or even knows it, is bound by unbreakable chains to the shaman’s enduring magic. Even Harry Houdini could not escape from that.”

The Death and Resurrection Show, by Rogan Tylor.