tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63525835577862203042024-03-06T03:33:21.391+11:00The Illuminated ShowmanThe Art and Craft of Esoteric ShowmanshipCaptain Frodohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14340941024328788247noreply@blogger.comBlogger242125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6352583557786220304.post-26560723709450535562020-05-11T14:10:00.000+10:002020-05-12T04:44:27.269+10:00In Defence of Children<div style="font-family: "Book Antiqua"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>In Defence of Children</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ IF YOU HAVE CHILDREN!</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Cuz i don’t and i slept in until 11 and it was glorious and I just wanted to let you know</i></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8w2rQziwPP7x-eALSbq_5du3xvaM7mCbbzsSJdGDhBxvkjdmd9FPE1_mR8J94mzn0Y8IQHLnKMMoiTsAkaXY6tcjobcVixBkSlzvR3Bto6OrfXZ66jl6CyX0dUVJmvknOO8Gz9f5yDWhv/s1600/IMG_0641+copy.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8w2rQziwPP7x-eALSbq_5du3xvaM7mCbbzsSJdGDhBxvkjdmd9FPE1_mR8J94mzn0Y8IQHLnKMMoiTsAkaXY6tcjobcVixBkSlzvR3Bto6OrfXZ66jl6CyX0dUVJmvknOO8Gz9f5yDWhv/s320/IMG_0641+copy.JPG" width="320" /></a><span style="font-kerning: none;">Luckily for me the author of this excellent public service announcement from Facebook wrote in all caps lock. This is basically how I judge whether something is an important comment. As a rule, if it’s written in all caps lock, it is not important. Complexity and depth do not coincide with written shouting. But, as we say in Norway, “those who shout in the forest shall be answered”. In the shouted statement I saw a little question concerning children and since I tend to search for the deepest answers to the simplest questions, here is my answer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In my feed children have been getting a hard time during the apocalypse. Usually its not really attacks on the kids, but rather something along these lines: </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>“The only thing I love more than children </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>is doing what I want all the time.”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i></i></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>You know what’s sweeter than the sound of a child’s laughter? </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>The sound of silence from not having any f***ing kids.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i></i></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">What clever and funny ways of expressing the joys of egocentricity. How good to be able to drink during the day and binge-watch whole seasons of tv. How lovely it would be. But when I scroll further on my feed and read some of their other posts I’m not so sure they are so much happier than me who does have a kid.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The memes make me giggle, most are funny jokes, yet from my experience they spring from a kind of misapprehension. It seems they think the only thing a child does is to steal your time, yet like in any good transaction, it’s really more of an exchange. You get something more valuable in return. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There’s an experiential dimension to kids that most childless people might not appreciate. In the stress of daily life even many parents forget this dimension. Like many of the most important things, this dimension is subtle, hence easy to overlook. Yet, once you get it, it is as obvious and life affirming as the difference between a set of directions to a place and Robert Frost’s poem the Road Not Taken. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I sit inside brooding, my blinds are drawn shut. I’m unemployed because of the Pandemic, and the feeling of uselessness lies just beneath the surface.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">To feel that what we do is right for ourselves and good for the world at the same time, is one of the great triumphs of human existence. I am a Showman and being a Showman is intricately connected to groups of strangers. I’d argue that you can’t understand what a Showman is except as part of a duality with Crowds. It is being watched by a Crowd which makes my Craft meaningful.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Crowds are integral to our Craft and simultaneously it is the very thing which will spread the Covid-19 virus. We performers, the Ones who Face the Other Way, are facing a very uncertain future. Possibly for the first time in history there are no crowds anywhere. We Showfolk are collectively lost. Not like wanderers lost in a wood, but like wanderers who have lost the woods.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The famous psychologist Carl Gustav Jung said that the majority of those who came to see him weren’t dealing with clinical neuroses but with a lack of meaning in their lives. In fear of loosing our Way completely, we must reignite our search for meaning.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Here I am ahead of the game. I have a hidden bedrock, a deeper dimension of meaning… Let me tell you the tale. It all began seven years ago very soon after my daughter was born. I was carrying her in a baby wrap against my chest to help her nap at least three times a day for at least three years. Up until then my identity was Showman. It was simple. Making, performing, touring, and talking about Crowds, creation and shows was my relationship, and usefulness, to the world. During those long walks this was beginning to change. A metamorphosis occurred, I was still the same person, but I was also becoming something more. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">My sleeping child was the seed for this growth. She sprouted invisible roots through my chest and straight into my heart. As we fused, becoming symbionts, my acts and my art lost ground as foundation for my identity. A new, deeper foundation became apparent to me. Like my relationship to Crowds had shaped me as a Showman, this new deeper relationship with my child, was reshaping me as a man. My responsibility grew deeper than entertaining Crowds. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The transformation was akin to when I grew from a boy into an adolescent, and then onwards to a young adult. Each time, I gained something new. More autonomy, better grasp of the world, a different relationship to my genitals, and with that a different relationship to the other sex. With each change I went through a kind of expansion, further into the world. A new dimension appeared. I didn’t know it at the same time, but with each development I also left something behind. As I left the kingdom of childhood, I left my sense of play behind. This loss is very apparent to me these days as I see my daughter completely absorbed in play with her toys. I used to play endlessly with my Star Wars figurines and this ability is now lost to me. In transformation something is gained and something is lost.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Becoming a father changed my relationship to my vocation in a good way. It greatly expanded the meaning and purpose of my old identity as a Showman. Caring for my child made me an expanded man. Still a Showman, but expanded. It connected me deeper into to world wide web of life.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">My previous identity as a Showman only connected me to other human beings. Showmanship only makes sense to humans. You can use a cat in your act, but you can’t do your act for cats. Show a dog a card trick and you will see what I mean. On the other hand, being a parent is something a dog understands. Try kicking a Doberman’s puppies and see it react. Its reactions might even be as powerful as a human being seeing a card trick. Maybe even more powerful.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Becoming a father connected me to a part of reality shared, not just by people, but arguably with the entire animal kingdom. Connecting to my child, I connected to something very much greater than myself and my kind. This experience was not merely cognitive. It permeated me completely, my feelings and thoughts were in perfect agreement with my will. There was no doubt in my soul I would throw myself without hesitation at the monster in my daughter’s closet, even if it was the last thing I did. The feeling was strange and unbelievably powerful.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Deeper connections are the very core of what you want as a Showman. A deep connection with the audience is the very point of the Way of the Showman. The lessons learned and transformations catalysed by my daughter expanded my range of connection beyond the circus ring and out onto the world stage. A lot of meaning is discovered when you can connect to something greater than just yourself.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I sat inside brooding whilst wasting some time scrolling on my phone when my friend wrote me asking how I was. I wrote something like: “I am fine as long as I’m in the moment. BUT, when I think about the future I very easily come undone. My wife can attest to the fact that my mood swings, often for the worse, when I’m not performing. Everything is up in the air. When will shows open? Will they open at all? When can I again provide for my family? When will my ridiculous skills become useful and meaningful again? Most importantly, when will it be safe for elderly people to once again play the slot machines at our local petrol station?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In short: the NOW is OK but the FUTURE is uncertain. Uncertainty, especially about the future, can be very distressing. I try to convince myself that the Way to the future is made up of a string of now moments.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The first moments of my day I drink tea. It’s a couple of days before Easter. Like most mornings I sit with my daughter on the couch and we read. Her half-hour Zoom school starts at nine. Until then we just hang out. Most mornings I read aloud. We’ve been reading Harry Potter since the quarantine started and we’ve almost finished the second book. I do the voices. It’s not easy. There are so many kids and teachers in those books. I’m not exactly the man of a thousand voices. I’m mostly a one voice kind of guy. Or I was until I had a kid who loves stories as much as me, so now I have a few voices down pretty good. At the end of a chapter she says:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“I wish it was Sunday.” I look at her and put my tea cup down. Easter Sunday has become a big thing for her. I am not exactly sure why, but in these troubled times we need all the excitement we can get, so to feed it I am planning a treasure hunt. We have invited her best friend and quarantine buddy Richard over to our house to join the treasure hunt. I have great things in store for them. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">First they’ll discover a map dangling from a string on the balcony. They’ll spot it from the trampoline. They’ll have to study it. If they do, they’ll eventually discover an X which marks the spot for the next clue. There will be many clues, one frozen inside ice in the freezer, one at the bottom of the pool, one high up in the olive tree. The final clue involves them having to walk 22 steps north west and 17 steps due east. I gave her a compass a while ago, now she will get to use it to find a donkey shaped piñata filled with chocolate eggs and bunnies, and a squishy toy for each of them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Why are there bunnies and eggs for Easter?” she asks. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“It’s the mystery of life,” I say. “Winter has passed. New life is in the air. Easter is a festival of hope,” I’m quietly chuffed about my answer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Hope is the fuel of my daughter’s treasure hunt excitement. The hope of chocolate and maybe a squishy toy rat makes her ecstatic with joy and anticipation. She doesn’t know what’s going to happen, but she is pretty sure its going to be good. She is facing the future playfully.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">From my adult, grown-up point of view things are changing, the old world order is wobbly. There’s a pandemic and there’s also climate change, self driving cars, and AI. As the poet said, “the times they are a’changing.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Things are changing for my daughter as well but her change is not from something she used to know to something new, since practically everything is new for her. The world is so vast, every day brings new things, a pandemic? She takes it in her stride. It’s no more strange and unexpected than the fact that we start doing jump rope for the outdoors part of our homeschool routine. Or that we one morning find our car has gotten a flat tire, which lead to a whole flurry of never-seen-before activities.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There is a petrol stain on the road. I’m happy to see it doesn’t come from my car. From the look of it it’s from my neighbour’s lawn mower. While I crouch by the flat tire, brooding over my broken future, my girl is chanting some verse from school whilst spinning her jumprope and splashing into the pool. Gargles and squeals and endless bell peals of a child’s laughter. It’s earlier than 11. The person who wrote that meme isn’t even up yet. I’ve been up for hours. She squeals with delighted laughter again. Part of me thinks: “How can you laugh at a time like this? The world is falling apart. My Way and means for making a living is evaporating like gasoline on hot tarmac?” </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The petrol stain next to me is a thin film on the ground. The sun is creating a gorgeous display of colours. My girl comes over, dripping wet with her jumprope wrapped around herself. She follows my gaze to the stain.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Look Pappa, it’s a dead rainbow,” she says pointing to the evaporated stain of my future. My heart flutters and my eyes well up. “Wanna jump in the pool with me?” She asks. I nod, afraid my voice will crack if I speak.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This virus has been terrible. With its destruction of lives and livelihoods. But, as morbid as it might be to admit it, it’s also a kind of exciting time. Who would have thought we would live through an apocalypse. The world is changing. The situation is new. I can’t predict or fix things the Way I used to. I need a new approach. I find this in the hidden dimension revealed by the children. They are my Easter, the hope, the new life and the Way forward. A reminder to not get overwhelmed by the future, and that I have to face it playfully. This is what I am doing before 11 in the morning, this is what having a kid adds to my existence, and I feel like I am a better man for it. Yet, I wouldn’t mind binge watching Unorthodox, about now.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I hope to see you all along the Way.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Yours Truly</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Captain Frodo</span></div>
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Captain Frodohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14340941024328788247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6352583557786220304.post-6941714948398704192020-04-11T14:26:00.001+10:002020-04-12T00:26:17.239+10:00The Day that Showbiz Died<div style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The first casualty was Crowds, but they took with them the whole of show business. We are a social species. We dread isolation from others. Isolation is how we punish those that are already in prison. As a species we would rather spend time with murderers and violent criminals than spending time alone with our own minds. Also, it’s bad for us. Studies have found that social isolation increases your likelihood of dying as much as smoking. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">No gatherings of people, no Crowds. What’s left for a Showman to do in this new world? How can artists and performers help turn social distancing into merely physical distancing? And what is a Crowd in this strange new situation?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The Killer</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The 11th of march, the day before my birthday, all the artists from Opium got called into an extraordinary company meeting. It was clear that it would be about the Covid-19 pandemic. I immediately felt the stress come on. Tingling in my hands, and a sinking feeling in my stomach. On this exact day nine years ago, 11th of march 2011, the earthquake, which caused the tsunami, which destroyed the Fukushima nuclear reactor happened. That incident lead to me loosing a year long contract in Hawaii. Only a few years, 2014 I was in a different show in Vegas called Vegas Nocturne the casino we worked in got sold from a German bank to an American financial group. It resulted in immediate cancellation of all artist contracts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> The business of entertainment is a fickle beast. Those on the Way of the Showman must be prepared for contracts to fall over on incredibly short notice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The message my Boss, Ross Mollison, delivered at the extraordinary company meeting, was that they would keep all three of their Vegas shows, Opium, Absinthe, and Atomic Saloon Show, open for as long as possible during the crisis. We all signed a legal document with amendments to our contracts, essentially giving us four weeks notice. Promise of pay for four weeks. After that the show would take its decision to stay open on a day-to-day basis. Anything beyond the four weeks was a bonus. Shit was about to hit the fan.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">My Awakening</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The day after the Boss’ announcement, on my birthday, my family from Norway was set to arrive in Las Vegas. My father, my sister and her daughter of 7 had already begun their journey. My own daughter had been looking forward to her cousin coming with considerably more enthusiasm than to Christmas.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">An hour or so after the Boss promised we would stay open, Trump announced the national borders would close. In that moment I understood the situation. It had been plain to see, but like a man in a disaster movie, making his bed and mowing his lawn whilst the nuclear bombs fall, I had refused to accept that everything had changed. I finally woke to the situation. I had to tell my family they needed to reconsider traveling. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I think all us adults had refused to see the seriousness of the situation simply so we didn’t have to break our little girl’s hearts. I spoke to my sister on the phone, two and a half hour before they were about to board their plane from Norway to the USA. We decided they would have to stay home. We hung up and broke our daughter’s hearts. The world collapsed into a black hole of all-encompassing disappointment, pain, and darkness. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Closing Time</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We didn’t stay open for the anticipated four weeks. It only lasted two more days. The Casino ordered us to shut down. The pay dried up after one week. Everything was up in the air. Still is. At least I didn’t have to fight the ethical dilemma of having to work whilst it wasn’t the right thing to do for the pandemic. It’s hard to do the right thing when you still need to pay rent, electricity, your daughter’s school fees, and your own raging book-buying habit.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">My show closed. Then the other two Spiegelworld shows closed. Then they closed the schools. Then they turned off all the gambling machines and all the casino’s closed. For second time in history. The last time was after the assassination of JFK. That shutdown lasted 24 hours.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">When the Tsunami and the ensuing Japanese nuclear spill made me lose my Hawaiian contract, it was because the investors pulled out, since the Hilton resort, that would house La Soiree, had a substantial asian clientele, which they expected to loose. With that contract lost, I went to Australia and created a new one man show, called The Way of the Showman, and booked some seasons with that. I survived and kept the business of shows going by finding other contracts and other Crowds. That is not an option now. This time there are no other contracts on the horizon anywhere, on any continent, and there are no Crowds.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The very thing my Craft of Showmanship requires is exactly what is not permitted in our new world situation. Gatherings of people are restricted. Having no Crowds of people have become an important remedy in fighting the pandemic, and saving lives. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A friend performing in a Palazzo show in Austria got shut down a few days before us as a new rule made gatherings of more than one hundred people illegal. Across the world that number dropped and dropped, until the United Kingdom forbade gatherings of more than two. (As of 23 of March 2020, Regulation 7 makes it an offence for any person to participate in a gathering in a public place of more than two people.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Closing the Loophole</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Two years ago found a loophole in my deal with the showbiz devil, here in Sin City, Nevada. I no longer have to continuously tour leaving my family behind. Here in Vegas I can go to work and come home like a normal person. I can be in showbiz AND be with my family. I wrote about that loophole about two years ago. Perhaps I shouldn’t have publicly announced it in my inaugural “On the Way of the Showman” blog post. Now the devil has come back and dotted his i’s and crossed his t’s. Sin City is closed for show business and most other business too. The devil doesn’t do things by half, he shut down The Strip and killed the whole of showbiz, to let all us pious showmen sit in our social isolation and stew on our lack of significant transgressions. We had been too good for the Devil’s liking. He’s disappointed with us all. Let that be a lesson to anyone thinking they can trick themselves into a good deal in a Mephistophelian bargain.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The Culprit</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">At this time, practically the whole world is in isolation. We are practicing social distancing to flatten the curve. Staying at home is not a sign of fear, it’s showing that we care about those above 60, those with preexisting conditions, and the random others of any age and fitness who are dying and will die. We are collectively doing our bit to lessen the pressure on the world’s healthcare systems. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The Covid-19 virus is making a triumphant march across the globe. Something like 20</span><span style="font-family: "lucida grande"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">%</span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> of those who get infected need hospitalisation. When hundreds of thousands of people gets sick, the 20</span><span style="font-family: "lucida grande"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">%</span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> quite quickly exceeds the available hospital beds. This is the crux of the problem.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The pandemic will not die down until we reach herd immunity. Which means enough people, about 80-90</span><span style="font-family: "lucida grande"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">%</span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> of the population, has become immune. (At the moment we don’t even know for sure whether having had the disease will provide us with immunity.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I heard America is estimating the death toll to become between 100.000 and 240.000. These are staggering and unbelievable figures. It is a war going on, a war against a new tiny enemy. This war will shape us and our world, there is no doubt about that.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">How Long?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">When the artists of Opium were told the show was shutting down, it was for two weeks. I was, at that time, personally expecting it to be for three months. Now I think even I was too optimistic.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A vaccine is a year to eighteen months away. It will remain bad for a long while yet. That makes a case for 18-24 months of this Crowd problem. It’s not so bad for all industries, but for my fellow show folk across the globe, things will not improve rapidly. But we will prevail. The Greatest Show on Earth will not be knocked over by hard times, in fact, in the past, our kind of entertainment has been exactly what people want during hard times. Pure good times and emotional release, promise of catharsis through shared experiences in dark theatres and big tops across the globe.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">80</span><span style="font-family: "lucida grande"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">%</span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> or more of those who get infected will survive fine and out of them the majority will have minor symptoms. My hope is that, like was the case when the Swine Flu came and went, the 80</span><span style="font-family: "lucida grande"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">%</span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> who are fine will be disgruntled by “the government, the world, the illuminati” over-reacting. These are the people I am crossing my fingers will go “fuck the virus, fuck ‘the man’ I am going to Vegas to laugh and drink and enjoy life, come what may”. But, that time is still very far away. In the meantime we are all locked up in our houses, and if, when walking the dog, we pass another person, we hold our breath. How do we as performers deal with this new reality?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">What am I doing?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The last weeks before the pandemic hit, I was busying myself with finally writing out my occult philosophy of Showmanship, stringing all the loose ideas and concepts together into a book. That made sense until showbiz died. All my ideas, thinking, and contemplation on shows and showmanship became even less relevant than usual. The Covid-19 canon ball struck the showman-ship below the water line. I was left with the sinking feeling that my whole philosophy and Way of life, slipped below to the abyssal plains. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">My Way, which I so confidently had picked out step by step, insight by insight, through my life, had led me to the edge of a cliff. I found myself staring into an abyss. Which vacantly and ominously smirked back at me. I shivered. Wholly lost. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Waking up in this new world, it didn’t seem appropriate to philosophise about showmanship. It seemed self-indulgent. But, if not practicing and studying my Craft, then what was appropriate to do for a Showman? With Showbiz dead what am I? What’s left of me? What is a Showman for in this new reality?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Some time passed. I became my daughter’s teacher. The family and I settled into a new routine without work, without income, without certainty, without any assurance my Craft or Way would ever rise from the dead. Trump promised the resurrection would coincide with the celebration of Easter where Jesus also rose from the dead. That ridiculous notion was quickly put to rest and replaced with a promise of more death and more uncertainty.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Despite all this, my mind drifted back to the Way. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Sometimes the Way falls away. A crag or hill hides the Way ahead, but as you expect to fall, the Way appears again. The Way forward is, in the end, always the Way you followed. It catches you and carries you along. It comes into being as you walk. Don’t stop walking. “You are more marvellous in your in your simple wish to find a Way than the gilded roofs of any destination you could reach.” (D. Whyte)</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Redefining Crowd & Material</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I am still a showman, but what does that mean now? And, what the hell is my next step? I dug back into my notes and pages, studying about that good old Way. I put on the starry crown and hoped to rediscover the Way onwards.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A showman is someone who faces the other way. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Who has walked with the Crowd </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">then turned around to Face the Others. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I have mainly thought of a Showman as one person facing a Crowd. This is probably because that’s what the majority of my career has consisted of. In our new reality without big Crowds, UK’s legal Crowd size being two, made me think of those who perform close-up magic.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">They perform tiny shows. For tiny Crowds. They might sit down with a couple having dinner at a restaurant and accost them with a show. Jokes aside, how to ingratiate yourself and get invited to show your tricks and material to an exclusive Crowd of two, is a real consideration. A close-up performance can even be a one-on-one encounter. (Making it a gathering of two. One Facing one Other is just on the side of legal.) </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A one-on-one performance doesn’t have to be magic, but not every kind of performance immediately lends itself to a one-on-one show. Some skills would need an enormous amount of creativity to be suitable. A Showman must always know their Crowd and tailor the material and presentation to suit. We must totally reimagine our material. We must not focus on skills and tricks, these become obstacles of artifice thus not suitable in one-on-one situations. Specially if we are doing the shows in non-traditional venues, such as at home.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">If a Crowd can still be a “Crowd” with just one person, the core of what a show can be is revealed to be even deeper and more fundamental than one person presenting preprepared material to a group. It can be one person meeting another, having an exchange of attention and making a connection. The essence in the meeting between Showman and the tiniest of Crowds is, not the preprepared material, but the connection.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Perhaps thinking deeply about Showmanship isn’t so self-indulgent after all. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The Showman’s obligation</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A showman’s responsibility is to make sure the time and attention given by a Crowd is rewarding and worthwhile. They need to feel like the time given was enriched, that their investment of time an attention paid off. Keep this in mind as you make the connections. It is the only preparation needed for you “material.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In the Warped Space of the stage</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">the Showman steals the Crowd’s time</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">But like a twisted, alchemical, Robin Hood </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">he returns it refined as: Show-time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The Daily Show</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Your first Crowd is the one inside your lockdown bubble. The experience of isolation shall be broken by connecting closer, by really being present with each other. Connections are made by paying attention. Being present. By taking time in the space of isolation to give each other our full attention. This is how we shall change our social isolation from equivalent to a preexisting condition like smoking, into a boost of our immune-system. (A fraught term, but it gets the point across).</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">For those of us with children, this isolation is a bizarre children's show. Remember this, you are constantly on Show for them. More than usual. This isolation is like a pressure cooker. The post-apocalyptic, record breaking amounts of dead-in-a-day-show, that’s going on all around us, is not the show the kids should see. My daughter is paying close attention to my wife and myself, we are the show together. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I believe once all this is behind us my daughter will remember how we behaved, and how our home felt during all of this, rather than anything about the virus. She is watching me and learning how to respond to uncertainty. Connections are made, between us, and inside our brains. How I act as a Showman in this daily show will determine how the wiring of these connections will be. I am aiming for resilience, not fear, as the response to chaos. This will be the flavour of my preprepared material in all my connections. Fingers crossed I am Man enough for this Show.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">See you all along the way</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Yours truly,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Captain Frodo</span></div>
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Captain Frodohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14340941024328788247noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6352583557786220304.post-3571383883142484202016-03-28T21:45:00.000+11:002016-03-28T21:45:08.887+11:00Lessons from the Way of the Showman - 70<div style="text-indent: 28.4px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOHF0XHo3ZH7MURurp5Rqsndk8hYVPw-scKiQbSCfxpxcwSBWPU48djZrs5GwLzyOiTeWV3DpSyUvhm9XhNE09KmDM8d0nFW8hfJLt063dwlkrstuMZm7E5UWWrKGWPQd2V2UO8-2J0RYf/s1600/way+of+the+showman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOHF0XHo3ZH7MURurp5Rqsndk8hYVPw-scKiQbSCfxpxcwSBWPU48djZrs5GwLzyOiTeWV3DpSyUvhm9XhNE09KmDM8d0nFW8hfJLt063dwlkrstuMZm7E5UWWrKGWPQd2V2UO8-2J0RYf/s200/way+of+the+showman.jpg" width="166" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The Illuminated Showman wears his heart on the sleeve, displaying it for all the world.</span></span></div>
Captain Frodohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14340941024328788247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6352583557786220304.post-37653016176712185752016-02-25T18:52:00.004+11:002016-02-25T19:37:18.901+11:00Between The Folds<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This is a very inspiring documentary about Origami. It is directed by Vanessa Gould who manages to get an extraordinary depth to her story. The people she introduces are an eclectic mix of fine artists and eccentric scientists who have devoted their lives to a Craft as unusual and obscure as our own Craft as Showmen. It carefully describes the passion behind such an obsession, and it shows the artists who all in their own way struggle to make something which on the surface seems like a childish</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> past time, into an art. Yet, the documentary also goes on to demonstrate the surprising real world applications of Origami in engineering and biology and medicine.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As you watch this, if you keep our own sacred Craft in mind I think you will find it is like the documentary is describing our own Way.</span><br />
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<br />Captain Frodohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14340941024328788247noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6352583557786220304.post-59081402019155500582015-11-16T23:03:00.000+11:002015-11-16T23:03:25.432+11:00Clown Truth<div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2px;">
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Since the dawn of humanity clowns have danced a closely intertwined dance with truth. </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0px; text-indent: 14.2px;">This dance is a fundamental feature of their timeless attraction. Truthfulness is, behind the mask of grotesque ridiculousness, what makes a clown. When a clown comes from a place of authenticity the clown can say things others wouldn’t dare. </span></h4>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUDKcUMUeBkYAyy36Pdf6Ei0V5v7c10pmr230KIFKp3zRJ3x_ZJaZYTXV1XNamGzwqGELHfb12zGwEB7iUUt6wkRhIWMK9BxsA2FcAWA4Lhyphenhyphenolv6qU1aunhgDk8aa4XYdUMPpVzlKGT4W3/s1600/FullSizeRender.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUDKcUMUeBkYAyy36Pdf6Ei0V5v7c10pmr230KIFKp3zRJ3x_ZJaZYTXV1XNamGzwqGELHfb12zGwEB7iUUt6wkRhIWMK9BxsA2FcAWA4Lhyphenhyphenolv6qU1aunhgDk8aa4XYdUMPpVzlKGT4W3/s320/FullSizeRender.jpg" width="228" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The clown is a liminal character, polarized between the lowest social standing and a unique position of receiving attention, which in and of itself is a form of social status. Attention not just from common people but also from the rich and powerful. In medieval times the court jester was a clown in service of a King or some other elevated noblemen. In this role jesters had unique access to, literally, the most powerful persons in the land. On top of that he had a unique permission to speak the truth.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The jester’s freedom to mock or contradict rulers is described in records from all over the world, throughout history. India, Persia, China, and Europe all had their own versions of it. Aztec regent Montezuma II (1502-20) said of his jesters: “They frequently pronounced some important truths,” and in Erasmus’ (1469-1536) Praise of Folly he writes: “They’re the only ones who speak frankly and tell the truth, and what is more praiseworthy than truth?”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We must assume Kings were fully aware of this aspect of their fools role. So they would take great care in selecting their court jester. To gain the privilege, of being taken care of and to possibly assert influence, the clown had to deserve it. Only masters of their craft would have gotten the honor of becoming court jesters. They would have had to be able to improvise and have a broad palette of skills to draw upon and combine as they in essence would perform to the same crowd repeatedly. Obviously they would also have to be compatible with as well as being stimulating to the individual King’s humor, taste, and temperament. </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioQqFAp7hfvhVNfbEcn33HhhtcGz4N_WX-gYoABvBW3FY_y6BHngCa0Klf9a8nS0mW2Zkev6aM1jdKg83VQkJ_mmsjPVoeA4A2tRcn_jZYYsv1-C4cgMoM_TdnnyNW2fOJo2fln0oZ2RCA/s1600/FullSizeRender-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioQqFAp7hfvhVNfbEcn33HhhtcGz4N_WX-gYoABvBW3FY_y6BHngCa0Klf9a8nS0mW2Zkev6aM1jdKg83VQkJ_mmsjPVoeA4A2tRcn_jZYYsv1-C4cgMoM_TdnnyNW2fOJo2fln0oZ2RCA/s320/FullSizeRender-2.jpg" width="227" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">From the Jester or Clowns point of view an important part of their education and development is to discover and develop a truthful representation of themselves. A character which can fall down, juggle, sing comic songs, tell stories or what have you, and come across as being truthful and himself through it all. They need to be able to pretend without pretense. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“The clowns who are masters are themselves. They make something wonderful out of who they truly, deeply and simply are. They don’t hide or conceal themselves in clown character, to appear as someone else, or someone good, or someone right. Yes, they borrow routines, shtick, and ideas from one another and their predecessors, and, true, they frequently belong to a long performance lineage and have learned, as apprentices, specific techniques that perpetuate a certain tradition. And yet whatever material they perform, whatever character they present, they enter into their clown persona as a way of being more generously themselves than they might be under usual circumstances. Every time we watch one of them, we don’t view a form or a character or a concept. We see, simply, them.” (Ezra LeBank and David Bridel, Clowns: In conversation with Modern Masters.)</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There were of course particular, if unwritten, rules for the way these transgressive expressions of truth could be presented. Guised in silliness, displayed and expressed from a grotesque and lowly state of dignity, the King would be free to take from it what he wanted and discard the rest as jest and absurdity. If the King sifted out a grain of truth from the jesters rants and chose to take the it to heart it was more likely for the grain to fall on fertile ground. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The jester could speak truths, but the telling of truth is not just a matter of stating facts. “Earth is not the centre of the solar system,” might have been a fact when it was first uttered, but it was not experienced as such by the vast majority. The type of truth best expressed by jesters and clowns is not factual truth, what German film maker Werner Herzog calls “accountant’s truth,” but rather what he calls “ecstatic or poetic truth.” </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“If facts had any value, if they truly illuminated us, if they unquestionably stood for truth, the Manhattan phone directory would be the book of books.” (Werner Herzog. A Guide for the Perplexed.)</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Facts might reflect objective reality, but they do not illuminate. Only truth illuminates. Poetic truth is an experienced truth, greater and more powerful than any fact. It is a process of communication where a recipient experiences someones expression as a deeper and more visceral truth. Poetic truth is not separate from human participation. It is not something which is, it is something which happens between humans. Poetic truth is artificial, meaning <i>“made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally, typically as a copy of something natural.”</i> (New Oxford American Dictionary.) A poetic truth is fact artificially crafted to make emotional connection.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For poetic truth to happen there needs to be trust between the presenter and the receiver. The King would have to trust his fool. For this trust to develop the fool had to express his self. If the King felt his jester spoke the opinions or truths of ministers or bishops, chances are the fool would have his privilege revoked, possibly by having his tongue ripped out or head chopped off.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1-odNOpc_PEBKOHIwDLOiDIMtl7BgJBtNZif8GOFqQ7Fe9xd1oJZnWJLaOW6w7_GHy1AIRZ9_F0o5lzLXhyhey9Ttw1ng5cOicIubDpEJ5f6Qs8vrsDP6GSRkakTGwjKwibLhhlBE6Xp_/s1600/FullSizeRender-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1-odNOpc_PEBKOHIwDLOiDIMtl7BgJBtNZif8GOFqQ7Fe9xd1oJZnWJLaOW6w7_GHy1AIRZ9_F0o5lzLXhyhey9Ttw1ng5cOicIubDpEJ5f6Qs8vrsDP6GSRkakTGwjKwibLhhlBE6Xp_/s320/FullSizeRender-1.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="234" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> The process of telling truth is a delicate business. As a clown attempts to do so there is always risk. Risk of failure. Not the kind of failure which is mimicked in a clown’s performance, which in actuality is only imitation of failure so well crafted it really is a success, its rather a failure of communication, failure of connection and understanding. If any of these three factors fail; the truthfulness of the clown, the particular truth expressed, or the King’s experience of either, the clown risks death. The historical jester who’s truth broke down could probably face literal death. Todays clowns risks dying on stage. Certainly not as bad as death, anyone who isn’t a clown would say. Yet, the clown’s truth is the clown’s soul. When a clown dies on stage the truth of his self fails, without which the poetic truth of his message can no longer happen. What dies, when a clown dies on stage, is his soul. Without it the clown is reduced to a soulless clown zombie. Wandering undead in greasepaint with a red nose being but an empty shell. A fate on par with death by royal executioner. (It’s zombie clowns like this, roaming shopping centers and birthday parties which is giving clowns a bad name.) </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> The truthfulness in the jesters persona is the key to his privilege as truth teller. When a clown successfully acts from his heart, the wellspring of poetic truth, truth can happen and rings true. In this subtle, yet powerful, process comes great power. Laughter and levity lowers the minds defense mechanisms, and as cynicism and distrust recedes, the listeners own heart becomes exposed, fertile ground. In such moments the heart of the jester can speak directly to the King’s heart and under these peculiar circumstances a lowly clown can plant a seed of poetic truth in the Kings heart. A seed which has the potential to sprout into governmental reform. If a clown whispers his truth to the King’s open heart, change becomes a possibility. Change of heart. Change of mind. Change of world.</span></span></div>
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Captain Frodohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14340941024328788247noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6352583557786220304.post-59813759222676182322015-11-11T03:51:00.000+11:002015-11-11T03:51:39.427+11:00Lessons From the Way of the Showman - 69<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;">Think of nervousness as excitement. With the alchemical powers of the mind you can create this transformation and a greater, more confident Showman will emerge. </span>Captain Frodohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14340941024328788247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6352583557786220304.post-12035357272114201412015-08-20T19:30:00.000+10:002015-08-20T19:31:31.906+10:00The Way of the Showman - III - Sideshow Part Two<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSr-RH96L_BP3-56TsuM7GQIuDtv6X8i5xBqhzKs-dNkgJYcGcD1o3k-mTeazOe9_cTxVR48lDF8op4qgEbXzaLHc32jHNSJ33JO2cOd45kV7RQcoYTrqyExhxsE-8gXF3zUosbKU7pIz2/s1600/HappySideshow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSr-RH96L_BP3-56TsuM7GQIuDtv6X8i5xBqhzKs-dNkgJYcGcD1o3k-mTeazOe9_cTxVR48lDF8op4qgEbXzaLHc32jHNSJ33JO2cOd45kV7RQcoYTrqyExhxsE-8gXF3zUosbKU7pIz2/s320/HappySideshow.jpg" width="320" /></a>Inspired by meeting John Kamikaze and getting invited to join his family of freaks, the Space <br />
Cowboy, Shep Huntly, Tigerlil and myself decided we wanted to create our own sideshow.<br />
The Kamikaze Freakshow was a hardcore experience for the crowds. John Kamikaze's art can be difficult to watch for even the most ardent sideshow enthusiast. So we wanted our sideshow to be a softer experience for the crowds. Personally I have always been drawn in the direction of laughter. A good laugh and gag can make the sideshow medicine go down easier. We wanted to create a show which could manage to convey just how fun and exciting we found the stunts and skills of the sideshows, and make the crowd feel that same excitement. In our talks we talked about wanting it to be a happy vibe show. Shep Huntly had, at the time a smiley face dyed into the hair on his head. He also played the Toothfairy song "You got to be Happy Now," at the start of each of his street shows. Eventually this idea of wanting to make a happy sideshow became our name, not just a description of what we wanted the show to be like. <br />
This next episode in the Way of the Showman series shows glimpses from some of the early exploits of the Happy Sideshow, Australia's Premier Freakshow.<br />
It shows a bunch of the madness arising when The Happy Sideshow opened for the extraordinary showbiz band Machine Gun Fellatio. It was some seriously good times. A deadly cocktail. Rock and Roll meets Shock and Roll.<br />
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<br />Captain Frodohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14340941024328788247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6352583557786220304.post-89392771608702115252015-08-10T20:37:00.002+10:002015-08-15T18:47:50.823+10:00The Way of the Showman - I - 1 Day in NorwayIn this episode Carnival Cinema has dug up an old gem. Flesh hooks, clog dancing, extreme tattooing, and myself without a mustache.<br />
Hamish McCormick and myself traveled to Norway in 2004. One of the days there we spent with my friends at Solid Tattoo and Piercing. It all seemed so normal and straight forward at the time. Looking back at it now I realise I used to be really tough. It was quite a day!<br />
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Links to the other episodes<br />
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<a href="http://theilluminatedshowman.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/the-way-of-showman-brand-new-series.html">CW Stoneking Film clip</a><br />
<a href="http://theilluminatedshowman.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/the-way-of-showman-web-series-teaser.html">Teaser Introduction</a><br />
<a href="http://theilluminatedshowman.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/the-way-of-showman-i-1-day-in-norway.html">Part I - 1 Day in Norway</a><br />
<a href="http://theilluminatedshowman.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/the-way-of-showman-episode-1.html">Part II - Sideshow #1</a><br />
Part III - Sideshow #2<br />
<a href="http://theilluminatedshowman.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/the-way-of-showman-web-series-act.html">Part IV - Act Analysis</a><br />
Part V - You Create Your Own Reality<br />
Part VI - Confetti and AardvarksCaptain Frodohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14340941024328788247noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6352583557786220304.post-57428560146566761072015-07-27T08:09:00.001+10:002015-07-27T08:11:26.035+10:00Invisible ThreadA short movie starring Penn & Teller? How sweet. A simple magic trick saves the world, it might just be plausible.<br />
The movie is from 1987. Features a cameo from James Randi.<br />
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<br />Captain Frodohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14340941024328788247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6352583557786220304.post-81957766293072804152014-10-30T08:41:00.000+11:002014-10-30T08:41:30.855+11:00The Pitchman<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.hocus-pocus.com/static/images/markmason.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.hocus-pocus.com/static/images/markmason.jpg" height="200" width="153" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mark Mason - Pitchman</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This is a great short film spanning a life of using showmanship to pitch con games, towels, and </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">eventually magic tricks to magicians. He tells of working on carnival rides in Blackpool and numbers games. Very interesting and worth a watch.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"Mark Mason is "The Pitchman", magic's best salesman. He started out working as a carney, running mock auctions and pitching merchandise around the UK. Now he develops and markets effects for amateur and professional magicians, often hosting the most successful and entertaining booths at the world's biggest magic conventions."</span></span></blockquote>
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<br />Captain Frodohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14340941024328788247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6352583557786220304.post-50627165947275120462014-10-24T13:04:00.001+11:002014-10-24T13:04:16.858+11:00Appalachian Show Folk<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alan Lomax recording before digital.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Watching Alan Lomax interview and explain the customs of story tellers, musicians, mountain whittlers, clog dancers, banjo players, ballad singers, coal miners, and bootleggers, </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">set me thinking about this peculiar breed of showmen. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Their style and Ways are less showy than most others ever featured on this blog. They do not rely on dazzle dazzle but rather on an immediate ability to connect. Hard working, hard men and women pouring their hearts out through their music and stories. Their stock in trade; a truthfulness and no nonsense. There aint no arguing with this kind of showings of the soul.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We meet men like Nimrod Workman who worked 12 hour shifts in the depths of coal mines, digging away at the hearts of those mountains to emerge singing ballads of black lungs. With the truth of each word knocking the dust off their helmets and overhauls. Its a simple truth, the most difficult to tell, because of its nakedness and directness. Telling us about how the coal seeping into their bodies, showing it like faint tattoos under his skin, and of course giving them black lungs. But somehow in his passion giving off the feeling that the coal inside them has been forged into a diamond, by the pressures of life and the alchemical process of refining life experience into truth told by art.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">With Alan Lomax himself throwing in commentary like: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"The huge crowds which applaud the precision cloggers represents the modern passion for spectacles of regimented movement." </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I love that sentence. He then goes on an Appalachian Journey for the individual movement and style and passion in the hearts of the mountain folk and how they express it through a stripped back practical showmanship.</span><br />
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<br />Captain Frodohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14340941024328788247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6352583557786220304.post-25390011110229703882014-10-21T10:30:00.002+11:002014-10-21T10:30:51.203+11:00In Jesus' Name: Taking Up Serpents<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Snakehandling.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Snakehandling.png" height="247" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I love this shot. The one armed man; deep faith resides there.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 17px;">Mark </span><span style="color: black;">16:18:</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 17px;"> "And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name . . .they shall take up serpents."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="watch-title " dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" title="In Jesus' Name: Taking Up Serpents"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 17px;">I find the fervour and enthusiasm of Crowds, Congregations and the Preachers leading religiously themed performances deeply fascinating. </span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="watch-title " dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" title="In Jesus' Name: Taking Up Serpents"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 17px;">The quality of the recordings in the clip below, its candid and autodidact feeling makes it all the more intriguing. It is like you have stumbled upon a tiny church deep in some hidden away holler. You are drawn in by the honesty and heartfelt interpretation of religious bluegrass and walking up you peek through the cobwebbed windows. </span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 17px;">There are interviews with some of the participants, but for the main part we just get to experience the no frills, all emotion and commitment of the little congregation.</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="watch-title " dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" title="In Jesus' Name: Taking Up Serpents"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="watch-title " dir="ltr" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" title="In Jesus' Name: Taking Up Serpents"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 17px;">There is great power in the shadow lands between performance and religious ecstasy. Real emotional healing and transcendent experiences has been created in settings like this for </span></span></span></span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 17px;">aeons. Here we get a rare unpolished and raw glimpse of it.</span></span></span></div>
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<br />Captain Frodohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14340941024328788247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6352583557786220304.post-43804699242883425182014-07-17T22:03:00.000+10:002014-07-17T22:03:33.513+10:00Prophet of the Third Reich<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://forward.com/image/2/630/0/5//assets/images/articles/s-hitler-110811.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://forward.com/image/2/630/0/5//assets/images/articles/s-hitler-110811.jpg" height="221" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Lucida, Verdana, sans-serif; text-align: left;"><a href="http://forward.com/articles/145806/strange-tale-of-hitlers-jewish-psychic/?p=all#ixzz35BCGYOZq">Psychic Erik Jan Hanussen leads <br />a seance in prewar Germany. <br />The Jewish-born mentalist improbably <br />became an advisor to Adolf Hitler.</a></span><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Lucida, Verdana, sans-serif; text-align: left;"><br /></span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Born to a family called Steinschneider, Erik Jan Hanussen arrived in decadent Berlin, and became the prophet of the Third Reich.</b></span></span></blockquote>
I first learnt of the existence of Erik Jan Hanussen from a magic manuscript by Bob Cassidy, a fabulous mentalist. The very peculiar tale, certainly more strange than fiction, was woven into a mentalist routine. I then looked into him and lo and behold his tale is a peculiar one.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"The story of Erik Jan Hanussen, the Viennese-Jewish psychic who befriended Adolf Hitler and became known as the “Prophet of the Third Reich,” is one of the most peculiar in modern European history. Few twentieth-century historians have acknowledged Hanussen as a factor in the dissolution of the Weimar Republic. That the Führer had engaged a wily Jewish clairvoyant might seem the stuff of mocking political fantasy or occult make-believe — but the story is true."</span></span></blockquote>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5-wvHhFJs6c/UdhOWCL8abI/AAAAAAAAA28/vGiUkDyhIrE/s1600/hanussen5+001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5-wvHhFJs6c/UdhOWCL8abI/AAAAAAAAA28/vGiUkDyhIrE/s1600/hanussen5+001.jpg" height="280" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"Hanussen’s yacht was the scene of lavish feasts, where drugs were offered that even sophisticated Berliners — who were quite familiar with the enchantments of cocaine — didn’t know about. Naked women and exotic boys performed shocking revues. Sometimes, after midnight, Hanussen demonstrated one of his specialties: his ability to hypnotize women into sexual frenzy and then sustained orgasm. A Swedish baroness, Barbara van Swieten, otherwise known on the nightclub circuit as La Jana, often hosted these events and sometimes acted as a willing participant. Even for a Berlin accustomed to debauched nighttime displays, Hanussen’s were considered phenomenal, over the top. </span><br />
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<a href="http://www.steinschneider.com/biography/hanussen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.steinschneider.com/biography/hanussen.jpg" height="320" width="200" /></a><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"></span></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">"A debate over the veracity of Hanussen’s omnipotent powers was on every fashionable Berliner’s lips. But still he capitalized on public interest by purchasing a Breslau printing firm in 1931, and then launching an occult journal, </span><em style="background-color: white;">Hanussen Magazin</em><span style="background-color: white;">, and a biweekly tabloid, </span><em style="background-color: white;">Bunte Wochenschau</em><span style="background-color: white;">. Prominent writers and artists such as Gerhart Hauptmann, Hanns Ewers, and Conrad Veidt furnished pieces on their experiences with the paranormal. Thomas Mann, the leading novelist of the day, was a regular contributor. Subscribers were encouraged to apply for memberships in the Hanussen Society, where tickets to his stage productions were offered at a fifty percent discount. Clairvoyant workshops and discussion groups formed around the magazine, and its circulation rose into the hundreds of thousands. But as the psychic’s fortunes grew, Germany’s fell. </span> </span></span></blockquote>
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<a href="http://www.guiltandpleasure.com/index.php?site=rebootgp&page=gp_article&id=101">Mel Gordon </a> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; text-align: left;"> </span></div>
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The excerpts above are from a superb article by author and scholar Mel Gordon. The authority on the life and peculiar times of Hanussen. <a href="http://www.guiltandpleasure.com/index.php?site=rebootgp&page=gp_article&id=101">A well worth read</a>.<br />
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For further reading there is an interesting article, if oddly presented, on the Steinschneider (Hanussens birth name) <a href="http://www.steinschneider.com/biography/hanussen_bio.htm">Family's Genealogical website.</a><br />
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This<a href="http://clogginsart.blogspot.dk/2013/07/who-was-erik-hanussen.html"> blog article by Chet Loggins</a> is also great for its pictures and historical reproductions.<br />
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Mel Gordon talking about Erik Jan Hanussen, Hitler's Jewish Clairvoyant. Unfortunately not available on Kindle, but <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Erik-Jan-Hanussen-Hitlers-Clairvoyant/dp/0922915687">here'a link to used copies</a>.<br />
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<br />Captain Frodohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14340941024328788247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6352583557786220304.post-17061355485364810962014-07-10T16:26:00.004+10:002015-08-07T20:25:40.876+10:00Hitler the Judas Showman<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0px;">In the annals of the Illuminated Showmen we hear of Judas Showmen. People who use the skills and techniques of Showmanship for bad. As we all know there comes great responsibility with great power and every once in a while we Showmen create a </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">super villain. These peculiar and intimate pictures shows Hitler practicing and preparing his Craft. His gesture work is something awesome to behold and now we know it was not an accident or from an innate ability to express himself gesturally.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">The following short article is from <a href="http://dangerousminds.net/comments/weird_private_photographs_of_hitler_practicing_dramatic_gestures">Dangerous Minds</a>. If you are not checked in over there you should be.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">"In 1940, in a review of </span></span><i style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0px;">Mein Kampf</i><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">, George Orwell (!!!), who was not yet the famous author he would become, </span></span><a href="http://www.military-quotes.com/forum/orwell-hitler-t26518.html" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #021eaa; letter-spacing: 0px;">wrote</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">: </span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But Hitler could not have succeeded against his many rivals if it had not been for the attraction of his own personality, which one can feel even in the clumsy writing of <i>Mein Kampf</i>, and which is no doubt overhwhelming when one hears his speeches. I should like to put it on record that I have never been able to dislike Hitler. Ever since he came to power—till then, like nearly everyone, I had been deceived into thinking that he did not matter—I have reflected that I would certainly kill him if I could get within reach of him, but that I could feel no personal animosity. The fact is that there is something deeply appealing about him. One feels it again when one sees his photographs—and I recommend especially the photograph at the beginning of Hurst and Blackett’s edition, which shows Hitler in his early Brownshirt days. It is a pathetic, dog-like face, the face of a man suffering under intolerable wrongs. In a rather more manly way it reproduces the expression of innumerable pictures of Christ crucified, and there is little doubt that that is how Hitler sees himself. The initial, personal cause of his grievance against the universe can only be guessed at; but at any rate the grievance is there. He is the martyr, the victim, Prometheus chained to the rock, the self-sacrificing hero who fights single-handed against impossible odds.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As Orwell points out, Hitler’s appeal was largely <i>symbolic</i>, and, just as with every American president from FDR to Nixon to Reagan to Obama, he understood that public presentation has to be carefully staged and place a premium on non-verbal, one might even say <i>precognitive</i> aspects to politics and ceremony. In the preface to<i>Mein Kampf</i>, Hitler wrote, “I know that men are won over less by the written than by the spoken word, that every great movement on this earth owes its growth to orators and not to great writers.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hitler understood the power of oratory, and his success in that arena was not accidental; it was the product of a great deal of practice and careful adjustment. Heinrich Hoffmann was Hitler’s personal photographer, who took an astonishing <i>two million</i> pictures of the Führer. Here we see a series of photographs by Hoffmann of Hitler practicing his exaggerated hand gestures to be used in future speeches. Hitler actually characterized different effects for the various poses, such as “gebieterisch” (domineering) or “kämpferisch” (pugnacious).</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">After he saw the negatives, Hitler ordered that the photos be destroyed, but Hoffmann hid them away. After the seizure of his archives, they were released to the public." </span></span></div>
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Captain Frodohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14340941024328788247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6352583557786220304.post-87832930519212294252014-07-03T22:55:00.000+10:002014-07-03T22:55:11.502+10:00The Little Candle & the Meaning of Life <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://nycmindmunchies.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/magritte59.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://nycmindmunchies.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/magritte59.jpg" height="320" width="242" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Magritte: Le Principe du Plaisir</td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span lang="EN-US">Every thinking person will at some point in their life find him or herself asking "What is it all about?" </span></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-US"><span lang="EN-US">Many of us meet types of people who believe they have an answer. But as it is said: "Listen to those who seek answers and beware those who claim to have them." (I guess I should mention here that I do not claim to have found the answer, I'm merely divulging interesting finds in my own exploration of the matter...:-) </span></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-US"><span lang="EN-US">Often those who have answers found them in religious texts. I, and more and more of humanity with me, seem to agree that this is not a fruitful place to find answers about the world. The ancient texts, written in a more violent, misogynistic and scientifically ignorant time is, both in broad strokes and in details misplaced in our time. It makes perfect sense in texts written long ago that slavery, stoning and "scientific facts" such as "the bat is a bird" are presented as true, and proper knowledge. They describe an understanding of the world prevalent at the time of writing. But in today's society we know so much more. As a result black people and women are considered sentient enough to vote and govern their own futures. Owning another person is thought morally despicable. Executions are abolished in all civilized countries but where they do happen they are, to be humane and are no longer considered suitable punishment for children who disobey their parents or those who gather sticks on the sabbath. The bat, even though it can fly is no longer classified as a bird but as a a mammal and birds are now understood to be avian dinosaurs. </span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><span lang="EN-US">It is time to face the music: If the world does not fit the book, it is the book that is wrong.</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-US">We find ourselves in a universe, on a
planet not created by anyone. We are not dictated by a creator for what to do. We are, as Sartre said; "doomed to be free." We must find our own way in the world. We must choose what is right and wrong and there is no one, but ourselves, that can tell us what is right in any definitive way.</span><br />
<h4>
<span lang="EN-US">the Quest for Meaning </span></h4>
<span lang="EN-US">I find it strange that those of a religious bent can find meaning in believing that we are here to fulfill a god's plan. A christian, for instance is happy in their belief that we are created by god and that he knows what our purpose is. We are all just players in this directors play, merely following his predetermined script for us. They have accepted this and apparently finds solace in that. They also seem to think that those who cant find solace in this needs to alter themselves, since the divine plan is infallible. I can't fathom the attitude of: "if the world doesn't fit the book - the world is wrong." I believe they have gotten it all wrong.</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Whats-All-About-Philosophy-Meaning/dp/1862077800">Julian Baggini</a> raises an interesting point about this "solution" to the quandary of meaning.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US">Frankensteins monster was a person who knew his creator and his creators
purpose for him, but knowing his creator and his purpose for him, did that make him content and satisfied? </span></blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-wcLRQYYkxUTZI63lHMdDAmZIdizVQ7wA_UX9PAzt11wSaL2Yo42E_3BX7_fb1R-J6hnwBzisT9otiL8TD2ebNAXfisl-X94W1WuSJSWjf2cEeW8iKwvG661EpCq71DXslnLjKfFta0z3/s1600/Screen+Shot+2012-12-30+at+1.23.11+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-wcLRQYYkxUTZI63lHMdDAmZIdizVQ7wA_UX9PAzt11wSaL2Yo42E_3BX7_fb1R-J6hnwBzisT9otiL8TD2ebNAXfisl-X94W1WuSJSWjf2cEeW8iKwvG661EpCq71DXslnLjKfFta0z3/s320/Screen+Shot+2012-12-30+at+1.23.11+PM.png" height="216" width="320" /></a><span lang="EN-US">If I, like in the novel <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Never-Let-Me-Kazuo-Ishiguro/dp/0571258093/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358384893&sr=1-1">Never Let Me Go</a>, was the cloned
creation, grown, payed for, and owned by some rich person, I don't think the knowledge of </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US">me being purposely born/created as spare parts for my “creator" would give me
peace. Living out the purpose of
someone else is not meaningful to me. Whether that being is a rich dude or a god. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US">To all those children who dies from cancer just to fulfill some obscure plan of god is nothing but </span><span lang="EN-US"><span lang="EN-US">wrong and repulsive.</span> It is exactly like the spare part clones from <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Never-Let-Me-Kazuo-Ishiguro/dp/0571258093/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358384893&sr=1-1">Never Let Me Go</a>. </span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US">From a story by <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/06/13/110613fa_fact_hemon#ixzz2IBtr4Ov4">Alexander Hemon</a> we learn in great detail what the human consequences are for such strange delusions. (He describes in harrowing poetic ways the death of his daughter from cancer.)</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US">One of the most despicable religious fallacies is that suffering is ennobling—that it is a step on the path to some kind of enlightenment or salvation. Isabel’s suffering and death did nothing for her, or us, or the world. We learned no lessons worth learning; we acquired no experience that could benefit anyone. And Isabel most certainly did not earn ascension to a better place, as there was no place better for her than at home with her family. Without Isabel, Teri and I were left with oceans of love we could no longer dispense; we found ourselves with an excess of time that we used to devote to her; we had to live in a void that could be filled only by Isabel. Her indelible absence is now an organ in our bodies, whose sole function is a continuous secretion of sorrow.</span></blockquote>
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From <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/06/13/110613fa_fact_hemon#ixzz2IBtr4Ov4">The Aquarium</a>, by Alexander Hemon, (The saddest story I have ever read.) </div>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">Living my life so that I will gain
benefits after death is not meaningful to me. The meaning of life is to be
found in life, by yourself. It is to do something that makes your life feel
worth living. It is what gets you out of bed in the morning. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">When advice is given about life, in schools, self help books and seminars this is where they need to direct us:
<a href="http://theilluminatedshowman.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/what-if-money-was-no-object.html">What do you really want to do?</a> If money, fame, family expectations were no object, what would you do? If
prestige was not your aim, what would you do, just for you? All things set aside what turns
you on? What makes you feel good? Let this be your guiding light.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.tattoostime.com/images/234/heart-and-compass-tattoo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.tattoostime.com/images/234/heart-and-compass-tattoo.jpg" height="200" width="182" /></a><span lang="EN-US">This is the most important question. Once
you know that, everything else will fall into place. There will be money to be
made when you truly master what you love. There is enough people out there, no
matter how obscure your area of enthusiasm is, there are others out there that
care for the same. Money and prestige will come if you don't make them your goal.</span><br />
<h4>
My compass</h4>
<br />
<span lang="EN-US">When I began following the flickering of my pilot light in the direction of the Carnival people often asked when I would get a real job, and fair enough, what I do for a living begs that question. Making people laugh at you by contorting and falling over has little dignity and, you would think, not such a great earning potential. But even when I left home and the regular gigs of my fathers magic show and became a street performer, doing shows just made me happy. It made me wake up in the morning with a desire to improve, explore and develop. Now that the shows I perform in take London, Sydney and Paris by storm people don't ask when I'm going to get a real job anymore, now they ask: so you must make a decent living from this. And I answer that I do, now - but I feel like I'm being paid back for money I didn't make when I traveled around Scandinavia in a Fiat Uno doing streetshows and sleeping in parks.</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-US">At no point on this journey did I feel like I was missing out. Because I was doing what I loved. If I had given up after spending a week sleeping in the car waiting for a sunny day so I could do a show to make enough money for petrol to get to the next town or festival, those that questioned my choices would have been right; you cant make money or a good life from being a clown. But since I never gave up, since that never felt like an option, and I stuck it out through the hard times, I find myself comfortably able to enjoy my life, support my family in my own house. </span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-US">When I write about it here it seems like I was some intrepid explorer daring to follow the fire in his heart venturing out onto the white pages at the back of the atlas into the unknown. But the truth is it wasn't hard and it didn't feel like a sacrifice because I was having too much fun. If anything it felt like I had found a loop hole in life that would completely bypass the rat race. (Ironically I think you could make a decent living beating the rat race by staging rat races. If pubs in Far North Queensland can make money racing cane toads, there is a living to be made from rat races...) </span><br />
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<h4>
<span lang="EN-US">The Little Candle </span></h4>
<span lang="EN-US">Happiness comes from choosing wisely. It comes from finding the little flame on the little candle in your heart that flickers when you find something that interests you. It is the fire that burns in your enthusiasm. It is the little candle in the dark world of chaos. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US">But to discover the little light in this brightly lit and flashing world is not always easy. It is simple and complicated at the same time. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US">As a child the little candle is in all but rare cases far to dim to see. The world is so bright that its modest little shine is drowned out. But it is there. Often it takes solitude of some sort to see it, sometimes meeting someone who's candle has become a torch makes you notice your own. The discovery of your own passion is the most important discovery a person can make. When you have found your tiny candle it will illuminate your compass</span> and guide you through the dark.<span lang="EN-US"> The world is filled with maps but you need your own compass to navigate them and light to see them both.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The journey through life is not about
getting to the end. We are all inevitably stepping closer and closer to the end, to death
eternal, so the important thing is to remember to dance. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<span lang="EN-US">Our parents created us, no doubt for
reasons of their own, with hopes for our future, but their hopes and expectations are not enough to give us purpose and meaning.</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-US">In the end we, each and
every one of us, must walk our Way alone. We must find our own way.
It is not enough to have walked through life following others. Our challenge is to find what that makes every day a dance into the arms of death</span><span lang="EN-US">, that will be our rebellion. It will be our revolt against a universe which does not tell us
what to do.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"> When
death comes knocking and the end is imminent we want to be able to look back
and know that you gave everything your best shot.</span>
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Captain Frodohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14340941024328788247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6352583557786220304.post-33800425446118353882014-06-14T18:08:00.000+10:002014-06-14T18:08:34.291+10:00Teller talks Tim's Vermeer<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.trbimg.com/img-528ea3d9/turbine/la-1564600-ca-1124-conversation2-mam-jpg-20131121/600/600x418" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.trbimg.com/img-528ea3d9/turbine/la-1564600-ca-1124-conversation2-mam-jpg-20131121/600/600x418" height="222" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Teller.</td></tr>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>“The more you know about how much goes into a work of art, the more you love it.”</b> </blockquote>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Teller </b></blockquote>
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Teller of Penn & Teller fame has now directed a movie. The subject of the movie is about Tim Jenison's invention which aims to aid the inventor in being able to paint as the Dutch Master Vermeer of Girl with the Pearl earring fame... <br />
<br />
Teller says the movie came about when Penn, feeling trapped in his own success, wanting to find a something non-showbiz that interested him through his friend Tim Jenison. The latter brought forth a video of a project he was working on. Hence Penn reqruited his co collaborator Teller and the search for non showbiz became a movie.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2013-12-06-TimsVermeer3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2013-12-06-TimsVermeer3.jpg" height="179" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Penn Jillette and Tim Jenison.</td></tr>
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Once we could hang all our complex ideas, and there are a lot of complex ideas in the movie, on <br />
Tim's longing to paint a Vermeer, I was confident that we had a movie.<br />
This he only discovered of in the editing process when placing two bits of interview, one to open and one almost closing it. That is the beauty of a creative process. <br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/En-KcUTMoZ8?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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Below is a snippet from the movie about some of the techniques Vermeer might have used.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/foG1NIdak7Y?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
Another snippet - This one features Phillip Steadman professor at UCL. Steadman published a book in 2001 called Vermeer's Camera. This book was then given to Tim Jenison by his daughter. In many ways this could be seen as the seed of the whole project.<br />
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<br />Captain Frodohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14340941024328788247noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6352583557786220304.post-79229120125561100162014-05-25T16:01:00.002+10:002014-05-25T16:03:37.557+10:00The Vine Magic of Zach King<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://v.cdn.vine.co/r/avatars/D3A23476C81000707179810324480_16606d956de.3.4_lKpzLUfrV7sV_cBSlUdGsiM27sS.V4B266HBwh3q_AhODanQUYFMQVY_JCCzFQIs.jpg?versionId=LVXgTM4AxN7FK3q8QXZ_Y6Wk2V45gFkc" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://v.cdn.vine.co/r/avatars/D3A23476C81000707179810324480_16606d956de.3.4_lKpzLUfrV7sV_cBSlUdGsiM27sS.V4B266HBwh3q_AhODanQUYFMQVY_JCCzFQIs.jpg?versionId=LVXgTM4AxN7FK3q8QXZ_Y6Wk2V45gFkc" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Zach King</td></tr>
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Have you guys heard of Vine? My good friend David O'mer got right into it and he discovered this <br />
quite stunning venture into magic. It is hypnotic and the 6 second limit makes it very fast paced and also impressive that there is actually 8 minutes of it.<br />
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This is a compilation of the magic video editing and creative skill of <a href="https://vine.co/Zach.King">Zach King</a>. <br />
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<br />Captain Frodohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14340941024328788247noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6352583557786220304.post-45554448853751385962014-05-17T17:04:00.000+10:002014-05-17T17:04:07.917+10:00History of Magic: Mentalism and Mind Magic.A great current look at magic, this chapter is about Mentalism and Mind magic and features such luminaries as Marc Paul, Max Maven, James Rand, Eugene Burger, Lesley Hazlitt, The
Amazing Kreskin, Luke Jermay, Uri Geller, Derren Brown.<br />
The show was produced by BBC. <br />
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<br />Captain Frodohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14340941024328788247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6352583557786220304.post-60051825243486829832013-11-29T08:05:00.002+11:002013-11-29T08:05:21.148+11:00Ira Glass, great advice on Creativity<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
For those with nothing but a faint song in their hearts, a little candle with a fragile flame of enthusiasm telling them that the Way of the Showman is for them. For anyone starting out on their creative adventures the advice from Master Storyteller Ira Glass is awesome. I wish someone had told me. It might have saved me from laying in the dark nights of Norway wondering if I would ever make work I would be proud of. I did hundreds of shows with my dad. Kids shows in shopping centres and at christmas tree parties was were I cut my teeth but our material was not something I could bring with me to show my punk friends. It took a long time, but it did happen in the end.</div>
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You become a Creative because you have good taste, good enough to know that for a long time, sometimes a very long time, you can tell your work is not good enough for yourself to like it. Stay with it! The act gets better!</div>
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<br />Captain Frodohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14340941024328788247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6352583557786220304.post-58560653406070170002013-11-15T15:30:00.000+11:002015-07-27T10:13:57.865+10:00The Way of the Showman - IV - Act Analysis<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5HESRqNWZUN1Ijf2FJg5szCEv0T7KFgaIfyTOAhGFsFN2WFvITO8FR_uU9wjI6cbESjygRtVDglVQ1PGboS0HXam2bfT76OohMkhP5KQuRDGbqnjCAH9-woTcgicNd_olQ9IKDS9h2DCT/s1600/Triangle+eye+Willows+pic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5HESRqNWZUN1Ijf2FJg5szCEv0T7KFgaIfyTOAhGFsFN2WFvITO8FR_uU9wjI6cbESjygRtVDglVQ1PGboS0HXam2bfT76OohMkhP5KQuRDGbqnjCAH9-woTcgicNd_olQ9IKDS9h2DCT/s320/Triangle+eye+Willows+pic.jpg" width="213" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Act Analysis</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Here I delve into some of my thoughts and ideas, frustrations and triumphs surrounding my physical </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">comedy spectacle. I guess if I was a musician this would be on my greatest hits album.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Yet again this has been dug from the Archives of treasures in the studios of <a href="https://www.facebook.com/CarnivalCinema?fref=ts">Carnival Cinema</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is always interesting for me to watch these episodes, so expertly put together by my good friend and collaborater <a href="https://www.facebook.com/hamish.carnivalcinema?fref=ts">Hamish McCormick</a>. Somehow he manage to surprise me every time, even though I am in the clips. I guess I have said and done all those things over the years but most of it was so in the moment I have all but forgotten it. Due to his persistent presence he has captured my life in all its ridiculous and glorious detail. Like how I almost loose my famous cool ":-)" as I struggle to come to terms with the changes imposed on my act by a television program I'm about to attend.</span><br />
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Captain Frodohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14340941024328788247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6352583557786220304.post-11487209078707384122013-11-09T14:14:00.001+11:002013-11-09T14:14:07.441+11:0038 years of Magic and Bullshit<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Here at the Illuminated Showman we follow the exploits and thoughts of the dynamic duo Penn & Teller with great interest. For not only are these fine magicians great Showmen but also, at least one of them... is a great magic thinker. Teller has as refreshingly a thought on what the art of magic is as the tricks are which he dreams up. In this interview moderated by Matt Donnely the two Showmen shine in their respective ways.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">"Magic can be an intellectual artform because it has a built in irony. The idea of magic is that there is trickery there. The process happening inside spectators is an <b>unwilling suspension of disbelief</b>."</span></span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I find this very interesting. Rather than the approach which Penn describes as the style of Doug Henning: This is a dream I had... and then they mutilate some girls. This approach of </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">just come with me on this journey, suspend your disbelief and let yourself slip back into a state of wonder and childlikeness, is just not enough, they claim. Do magicians perhaps use this ruse as a get out of jail free card for not creating effects that connect with Crowds deeply enough for it to matter to them? Or is is a denial of what Teller described as the unwilling suspension of disbelief? The dynamic duo certainly seems to favour the latter. </span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">An style which does not deal with the fact that people expect trickery when watching a magician is simply delusional. Teller further thinks that this is one of magics greatest qualities that it deals with what truth is. Questioning truth and reality</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> is a cornerstone of rational thinking and with it deeply important for all. If one treat magic in this way, which any one who have acctually seen Penn & Tellers work will know that they utilize this philosophy in all that they do, and with great results. Their magic is fresh and honest. You cant help but feel that even though they are constantly fooling you they are not treating you as an idiot. They believe their audience to be made up of thinking individuals. With these key concepts, laid out so well in this interview, one gets a powerful philosophic tool to apply to ones conjuring. With this simple idea you can make your magic both fundamentally interesting and promote questioning rational thinking.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">"Watching magic you are always looking with your eyes whilst measuring it against what you know."</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Steve Martin on the Power of tricks.</span></span></h4>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Teller believes that it is the way magic tricks stimulate the thinking process by showing seemingly impossible things whilst the spectators also knows that this is impossible is fundamental to the appeal of magic. He paraphrases Steve Martin:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Steve Martin magic is the lowest art form, something you can do if you have no talent elsewhere.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></span>Teller</span></div>
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<a href="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7jkrebRiT1qze60do1_500.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7jkrebRiT1qze60do1_500.gif" width="320" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“I had loved magic tricks from the time I was six or seven. I bought books on magic. I did magic acts for my parents and their friends. I was aiming for show business from early days, and magic was the poor man's way of getting in: you buy a trick for $2, and you've got an act.”</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">STEVE MARTIN, Time Magazine, Aug. 24, 1987</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"Anyone can do the crappiest magic trick and it still be interesting or have some sort of intellectual component... P</span></span><span style="font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">eople get work doing terrible tricks with horrible narratives. </span></span><span style="font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"</span></span></div>
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Teller</div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">If you have mastered tricks, be they magic or circus style skills like juggling or balancing or sideshow style tricks such as the human blockhead or swordswallowing you have an act even if you have no presentation. In many shows this would be all the performer had and the Management would hire a talker which could present the person with the tricky skills. But the point is tricks sell. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">When walking down a midway if you here that a man will be swallowing a fragile neon glass tube you don't ask who it is that will do it. If you hear a girl will get stark naked inside this tent you don't need to know who you just want to know how much the ticket is. This is the nature of tricks.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;">Here he is of course talking of what we here at the Illuminated Showman have written about as <a href="http://theilluminatedshowman.blogspot.dk/search?q=power+of+tricks">the Power of Tricks</a>. The tricks in themselves has a power which truly captivates us. Even when done without narratives, as pure demonstrations of some new found skill, like finding a selected card, have some fascination for us. Thus we can buy a two dollar trick and with no skills of Showmanship go forth and if nothing else gain some attention and notoriety. </span></span></div>
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<br />Captain Frodohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14340941024328788247noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6352583557786220304.post-91549039559007058682013-11-06T14:12:00.000+11:002013-11-09T14:18:22.066+11:00Nate Staniforth - Magician<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Last night as I couldn't sleep I remembered I had been pointed towards a link to a clip about Magician Nate Staniforth by Brian Daly. SO I checked it out. And it was really great. His straight forward and articulate style captured me. He pulls no punches. He does not soften his magic by making silly jokes. Unapolagettically he sells mystery.</div>
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Then I watched this. It is the teaser trailer for a web series Nate is doing.</div>
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And finally here is a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVx09vyYX9M">15min talk he gave in 2011 for Tedx in Iowa</a>. For some reason I cant link to it but you can click this link <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVx09vyYX9M">here</a>.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px; text-align: start;">What is it about magic and magicians that draws us in? What makes us suspend and challenge our perception of reality? In this TEDx Talk Magician Nate Staniforth shares his passion for using illusion to create a feeling of astonishment and amazement, and how vital this emotion is to the human condition."</span></blockquote>
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<br />Captain Frodohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14340941024328788247noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6352583557786220304.post-70732560701274729412013-09-11T18:30:00.001+10:002015-08-15T18:47:18.796+10:00The Way of the Showman - II - Sideshow #1<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUZA3gO6sMbiXMp7-R-S1IqaieAj-LFvdbCrpT-3hRAcqRkoRyI13KbKNOzhN-F1WU1W8hId4Wsyxc9dySizQMvUVENaNJY62y9zgnlmipTJPCli-PloE8HgCmkn-MQVSqfXdvOlb2cNuZ/s1600/kfskamiflashl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUZA3gO6sMbiXMp7-R-S1IqaieAj-LFvdbCrpT-3hRAcqRkoRyI13KbKNOzhN-F1WU1W8hId4Wsyxc9dySizQMvUVENaNJY62y9zgnlmipTJPCli-PloE8HgCmkn-MQVSqfXdvOlb2cNuZ/s320/kfskamiflashl.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">pho</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9px; letter-spacing: 0px;">photos © LOUISE CHIN e IGNACIO ARONOVICH</span></td></tr>
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<h4>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sideshow Part One</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In 1998 I found myself thrown into a crazy world of street performers, freaks, homeless people, angry locals, all night parties, and general mind altering experiences. Travelling with to brilliant, vibrant, and inspiring fellows from Australia with a freshly broken heart I watched the world explode in every direction.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I played streetshows at the Edinburgh Fringe and this was before anyone controlled what we did. So it was a little more chaotic, to put it mildly. Amongst all the crazy people handing out flyers me and my </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">fellow travellers the Space Cowboy and Shep Huntly were invited to see a Freakshow which performed as part of the festival. The show was called the Kamikaze Freakshow and was run by the crazy power engine and freakshow fanatic John Kamikaze. I was blown away by the shows great fusion of theatrics and hardcore sideshow stunts. John did an unprotected neon swallow, sat for an hour pre show "pinning up" as he called it, putting 350 hatpins and hyperdermic needles through his flesh. This was just his costume.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">pic: LOUISE CHIN e IGNACIO ARONOVICH</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I had dabbled in some human pincushioning and had put three pins through myself. This was dedication on a whole other level. So when we were all partying and dancing in the wee hours of the night and I was sporting some of my flexi stuff on the dance floor and suitably affected Kamikaze, whom we had met and come to fear and love, asked me to join his family, and carried away by the moment I said yes.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Next day he came up onto the High Street, the Royal Mile and saw my show. He was still interested in adopting me. I had been whisked away from a messy break up by Shep Huntly and the Space Cowboy only weeks before and from my brokenhearted haze the world was offering up opportunities faster than I could contemplate them. So I had decided to just say yes to whatever life threw at me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I had previously had a love of the Sideshow. I had experienced the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow and marvelled at the Enigma, Mr Lifto and Mat the Tube. I also had befriended Håvve, the Head of <a href="http://www.painsolution.net/%E2%80%8E">Pain Sollution</a>, an awesome fakir/sideshow outfit from Oslo Norway, but I had never seen anything like the Kamikaze's.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">photos © LOUISE CHIN e IGNACIO ARONOVICH</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Before long the Freakshow had run away with me and I found myself sleeping literally on the floor in John Kamikaze's little house in Pilton, Edinburgh. Sharing the house with Pinky Pinky, (Baby Dee)- a hermaphrodite which had been performing with every sideshow and freak establishment in the States, Danny Powertool - a dwarf penile phenomenon lifting unimaginably heavy weights with his privates, and Chris Tanner a musician from Melbourne part of the Freak band. It was a crazy time. Crazy shows.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I read <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geek_Love%E2%80%8E">Geek Love</a> at the time, and my strange headspace and living space made the book loose some of its impact. The twisted characters of the book blended in so naturally with my real life new family that it wasnt until a few years later, when I reread the most awesome Freakshow novel of all time that I discovered just how twisted it really was. Those who know that book will appreciate how strange my life was at the time...</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Adventures of CF Melbourne Comedy festival - 06</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This first real episode of The Way of the Showman web series shows some scenes from that crazy time of my life. 1998 seems like a very long time ago. I seem like another person, yet still so much the same. Same block of marble but so much less finished. Life keeps chipping away at me and it still very much is.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The episode also shows bits of my first full solo show called the Adventures of Captain Frodo from 2006, already 7 years ago... wowsa. Time flies and it is great to have Hamish McCormick digging through the extensive archives of Carnival Cinema to dig up and create these gems from the past.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I hope you enjoy episode 1.</span><br />
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More episodes: </div>
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<a href="http://theilluminatedshowman.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/the-way-of-showman-brand-new-series.html">CW Stoneking Film clip</a></div>
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<a href="http://theilluminatedshowman.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/the-way-of-showman-web-series-teaser.html">Teaser Introduction</a></div>
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<a href="http://theilluminatedshowman.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/the-way-of-showman-i-1-day-in-norway.html">Part I - 1 Day in Norway</a></div>
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<a href="http://theilluminatedshowman.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/the-way-of-showman-episode-1.html">Part II - Sideshow #1</a></div>
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Part III - Sideshow #2</div>
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<a href="http://theilluminatedshowman.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/the-way-of-showman-web-series-act.html">Part IV - Act Analysis</a></div>
<br />Captain Frodohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14340941024328788247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6352583557786220304.post-60931201519646808822013-08-28T17:45:00.001+10:002015-07-27T10:04:04.388+10:00The Way of the Showman Web series -TeaserAfter a freak, sneak, peek into the Carnival archives only a few days ago with <a href="http://theilluminatedshowman.blogspot.dk/2013/08/the-way-of-showman-brand-new-series.html">the fine collaboration</a> <br />
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twixt <a href="http://theilluminatedshowman.blogspot.dk/2012/07/carnival-chronicles.html">Carnival Cinema,</a> <a href="http://theilluminatedshowman.blogspot.dk/2012/07/singing-showmen.html">C. W. Stoneking</a> and yours truly we get a teaser of what's to come. As always the editing and filming is done by my friend and faithful companion Hamish McCormick and I must say it is looking mighty fine!<br />
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The background for this web series is a ten year long, ever morphing dream shared by McCormick and myself. Every meeting, every skype chat, or long distance phone call (whilst I'm out on the road peddling my unique brand of Showmanship and he is holding the fort in Brunswick, Melbourne,) invariably ends in deep conversation about the details of the current state of the "project." It has been a merchandize DVD, an art film, a bio pic, a film, and an endless topic of creative conversation. What on earth do we do with all this great footage?<br />
Now finally it is really coming together! <br />
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<a href="http://b.vimeocdn.com/ps/107/400/1074006_300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://b.vimeocdn.com/ps/107/400/1074006_300.jpg" height="200" width="200" /></a>Hamish has followed me, literally around the world, always with his faithful camera rig handy and documented my trials and tribulations. He was there when I fell off the cans. He was there when La Clique broke into the West End in London. He was there when for the first time I took a crew of artists back to Norway, to my hometown of Haugesund. He was there when I worked with Circus Oz, when I worked with the Happy Sideshow, La Soiree, at the Circus Festival in Tasmania, when I got my first home loan approved, when I did my first solo show, and on it goes.<br />
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Now over the next future we will share my life with you. It will be a video diary from my life on the road going back a decade and told in no particular order. It will be slices of life, my life, served up like pieces of fine layer cake.<br />
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Enjoy! <br />
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<br />Captain Frodohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14340941024328788247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6352583557786220304.post-46485719921851369592013-08-20T03:04:00.002+10:002015-07-27T10:00:06.856+10:00The Way of the Showman - a brand new SeriesThis fine piece of fusion art is created by Hamish McCormick the brain and power behind Carnival Cinema. Over the last 11 years this fine film maker has followed yours truly around with a video camera and pretty much captured way more than the highlights of my life and career. As an ongoing series he will produce videos spanning a decade and fitting all matters of styles and contents. I will be posting them here on the Illuminated Showman and they will also be appearing over at the Carnival Chronicles.<br />
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The film below has been filmed in several sessions over a few years and the track is by the extraordinary blues man and raconteur <a href="http://theilluminatedshowman.blogspot.no/2012/07/singing-showmen.html">C.W. Stoneking</a>. <br />
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I truly hope you like this first installment in the series in The Way of the Showman - the Life and Times of Captain Frodo.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">C.W. Stoneking, Blues man and <a href="http://theilluminatedshowman.blogspot.no/2012/07/singing-showmen.html">singing showman</a>.</td></tr>
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<br />Captain Frodohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14340941024328788247noreply@blogger.com0