by Jimmy Talksalot
A Street Magician's Manual
So, ya wanna be a busker??? This is THE handbook for those ready to build a tip and pass the hat! Advice for working the street, and for working LIFE!
If you consider yourself a magician, then you're an artist and you belong to a tradition (Whether you like it of not.) with expectations from your peers and the laity. This form of art can only function gracefully if the operator works with perfection in his mind, otherwise it appears clumsy and transparent to the spectator.
Those words are directly from the pen of JimmyTalksalot- street performer and world traveller. Jimmy has busked the world over and learned through hard knocks and great teachers. Jimmy is a tremendously talented performer (You have to be to make a living on the streets- and eh DOES make a good living.) and more importantly SHARING! What does he share? In this book, Jimmy shares his bread and butter- not the routines he does, but the wisdom and information he has collected over YEARS of street performing in New Orleans, Europe, California, and around the globe.
Jimmy is a plain talking, straight shooter and he will tell you like it is. You will hear about the glamour and the NOT-SO GLAMOUROUS side of making a living passing the hat.
There are rules to street performing- it's like a special world and one where not knowing the rules will cost you MORE than money. Jimmy talks about those rules of the street. He also shares where to find the good pitches, how to draw a crowd, how to KEEP the crowd. He will tell you about various cultures and how they differ from American busking. He shares some of his magic Hat Lines to help you get fat hats. Jimmy also stresses ART, and the culture and tradition behind not only street performing but magic in general. He has a love of this art, and has strong ideas and opinions about where it needs to go and what needs to happen for it to survive. All this and more he shares with YOU! Rather than read this ad copy, I suggest you go near the bottom of this ad, and just look at the free preview.... I'll bet in those 20 pages you'll understand BETTER than anything I could tell you about this book.
It is a 6 X 9 170 plus page soft cover book, small enough to take with you on the street and read in between pitches. It is a manual intended first for careful study, and then for repeat review as your experience begins to catch up with some of the ideas and concepts you will read about. This $35 book will probably pay for itself the first time you step onto the street, but even before then, you will probably find yourself taking some of this advice and applying it to LIFE in general, and your MAGIC as a whole!
Peppered with snap shots and art based on Jimmys Busking adventure, there is little fluff left over in this booklet. I think you will find it a bargain and one of those books you read over and over and each time discover some new wisdom you had forgotten!
Pages 170 - Softbound
