the Way of the Showman

Welcome back to season two! This first episode is a response to the short bonus episode on I published on my birthday, which I share with the pandemic. In that episode I asked you listeners if you were interested in having me talk about my artistic process. I did get some resposes to that in the affirmative, so here it is!This is an unscripted conversational episode that describes some of my thoughts and actions in creating a 1hr20min theater show in december 2020. The pandemic was raging and I was creating it very much in a bubble, a socially distanced and physically distanced state of mind. As you will hear this podcast, and by extension you, dear listener, was a big part of my inspiration for pushing myself into areas outside of my comfort zone in this show.Pedro Tochas, this episode is for you.Links:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/captainfrodohttp://Captainfrodo.comThewayoftheshowman@gmail.comSupport the show...Now you can get t-shirts and hoodies with our wonderful logo. This is the best new way to suport the podcast project. Become a proud parader of your passion for Showmanship and our glorious Craft whilst simultanously helping to gather more followers for the Way.You'll find the store here: https://thewayoftheshowman.printdrop.com.auIf you want to help support this podcast it would be tremendous if you wrote a glowing review on iTunes or Spotify.If you want to contact me about anything, including wanting me to collaborate on one of your projects you can reach me on thewayoftheshowman@gmail.comor find out more on the Way of the Showman website.you can follow the Way of Instagram where it is, not surprisingly thewayoftheshowman.If you find it in you and you have the means to do so, you can suport the podcast financially at:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/captainfrodo

Happy birthday pandemic and happy birthday to me. My birthday and the day Showbiz Died is the same day. I told all about that in episode one. In this episode I reflect on my life in this crazy time. One year has passed. So much has changed, but the one thing that hasn't is my full on and full time dedication to the Craft of Showmanship. I am in the final stages of writing my philosophy on Showmanship. It will be about 400 pages when it finally finds its way onto printed pages. This crazy time has allowed me to delve deeper into the philosophical underpinnings of the Craft of Showmanship, as well as dive deeper into myself. All this will be revealed in the fullness of time.Warning: ⚠️  This episode is more emotional than intellectual, there is no essay with deep and consice explorations on making meaningful Material, or scripting superb Structures, just me opening my heart a little.Support the show...Now you can get t-shirts and hoodies with our wonderful logo. This is the best new way to suport the podcast project. Become a proud parader of your passion for Showmanship and our glorious Craft whilst simultanously helping to gather more followers for the Way.You'll find the store here: https://thewayoftheshowman.printdrop.com.auIf you want to help support this podcast it would be tremendous if you wrote a glowing review on iTunes or Spotify.If you want to contact me about anything, including wanting me to collaborate on one of your projects you can reach me on thewayoftheshowman@gmail.comor find out more on the Way of the Showman website.you can follow the Way of Instagram where it is, not surprisingly thewayoftheshowman.If you find it in you and you have the means to do so, you can suport the podcast financially at:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/captainfrodo

In this final episode of season one, I attempt to give a few indications of just how grand and sacred our Craft can be seen. I do a deep dive into symbolic and mythological territory unlike anything I have done before in any other episode. I try to spin a new kind of poetic, sometimes rhyming narrative to explore our Craft, our Secret and Sacred Vessel, the ShowmanShip.This episode also has a soundscape to aid you in you inner recreation of the mythopoetic indications I am laying out.I play the recording of a song I wrote and recorded in 2013 called the ShowmanShip, and I am amazed at how well it holds up with the themes of my current nautical dreaming during the pandemic.I also play a recording of a song about myself written by the incomparable singing showman Mikelangelo aka Michael Simic. The song was recorded in a hotelroom we shared in 2008. I love Michaels music and its a supreme pleasure to share this song with you all, even at the risk of aggrandizing myself. But he is a true artist and there is no lie in his fire, and even though I stand very close to the subject matter, I am sure you will share my love of it. The song is called the Ballad of Captain Frodo.Shownotes:Sir Ken Robinson on finding your element. A longer talk, for those who want more, and "she's not sick, she's a dancer."Mikelangelo aka Michael Simic has been a tremendous inspiration for me in my journey as a showman. It was watching him perform that first inspired me to express deeper and more complex throughts with my art. He is a good friend, even if the Way only brings us together on the rarest occasion. His band the Blacksea Gentlemen stands as one of my strongest inspirations from the australian contemporary performing art scene.Walt Whitman. Oh Captain, My CaptainScurvySupport the show...Now you can get t-shirts and hoodies with our wonderful logo. This is the best new way to suport the podcast project. Become a proud parader of your passion for Showmanship and our glorious Craft whilst simultanously helping to gather more followers for the Way.You'll find the store here: https://thewayoftheshowman.printdrop.com.auIf you want to help support this podcast it would be tremendous if you wrote a glowing review on iTunes or Spotify.If you want to contact me about anything, including wanting me to collaborate on one of your projects you can reach me on thewayoftheshowman@gmail.comor find out more on the Way of the Showman website.you can follow the Way of Instagram where it is, not surprisingly thewayoftheshowman.If you find it in you and you have the means to do so, you can suport the podcast financially at:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/captainfrodo

I have been feeling lost, like so many of you. My Show was My home, now its destroyd by plague and I can't get home.The Showman has his home in the space that arises in the meeting between performer and audience. We are all lost. The virus-plague has attacked our ability to gather in groups which means its infected and isolated me from accessing a place that's been my home away from home for my entire life. I explore the term Solastalgia - the homesickness you have when you are still at home, but that home has been irrevocably been damaged and altered by negative changes to the environment. Originally conceived of to describe the emotional state experienced by people affected by open cut mining in Upper Hunter region of New South Wales, Australia, I look at how our inner, interhuman home of shows have been open cut mined and destroyed by the pandemic. Since our Show-home is an inner experience and the virus is attacking our insides the inner geography thats being open cut mined is our souls. We all hurt and with good reason. I feel your pain fellow showfolk.Show notes:Object Episodes - Jay Gilligan and Erik Åbergs podcast exploring what juggling is now and was through the ages and where it can go in the future.The Happy Sideshow - Experpts from a show we did in Stockholm, Sweden for the Subörb Circus festival in 2003.Hideaway Circus podcast - Josh and Lindsay interviews who's who of circus.the age of Solastalgia - article by the coiner of the termTedx talk by Glenn AlbrechtSolastalgia and Wildfire - a talk by Glenn AlbrechtSupport the show...Now you can get t-shirts and hoodies with our wonderful logo. This is the best new way to suport the podcast project. Become a proud parader of your passion for Showmanship and our glorious Craft whilst simultanously helping to gather more followers for the Way.You'll find the store here: https://thewayoftheshowman.printdrop.com.auIf you want to help support this podcast it would be tremendous if you wrote a glowing review on iTunes or Spotify.If you want to contact me about anything, including wanting me to collaborate on one of your projects you can reach me on thewayoftheshowman@gmail.comor find out more on the Way of the Showman website.you can follow the Way of Instagram where it is, not surprisingly thewayoftheshowman.If you find it in you and you have the means to do so, you can suport the podcast financially at:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/captainfrodo

What will our firewall be between ourselves and the Svengali scamsters of the world? To day we look into science. We check out if there are any lessons to be learnt from looking at the Black Death in the middle ages, we discover a whole new tiny world through a home made microscope in 1683 in the Netherlands. This is the third and final episode in our explorations of how to get Carny Wise.Show notesAlexandre Yersin - the discoverer of the cause for the Black DeathOn Unweaving the Rainbow - article by Michael ShermerLamia - John Keats' full poem where the unweaving the rainbow appearsStephen Novella quote about science - Science definitionThe Surgeon of Crowthorne - book about the murderer and madman who contributed the most word definitions to the Oxford English Dictionary.Bifrost - rainbow in Norse MythologyA short article on the Black DeathAnthony Leeuvenhoek - the original microscope master and discoverer of the world of the tiny all around us ( and on us)Microscopic mites that live on your faceHow the Easter Island Statues "walked" from the quarries to their final resting places.Kitasato Shibasaburōthe - Japanese Co-discoverer of the pest bacteriaYersinia Pestis - the bacteria which causes the Black DeathThe Skeptiks Guide to the Universe book on skeptical thinking Jim Stienmeyer - author and illusion designerSupport the show...Now you can get t-shirts and hoodies with our wonderful logo. This is the best new way to suport the podcast project. Become a proud parader of your passion for Showmanship and our glorious Craft whilst simultanously helping to gather more followers for the Way.You'll find the store here: https://thewayoftheshowman.printdrop.com.auIf you want to help support this podcast it would be tremendous if you wrote a glowing review on iTunes or Spotify.If you want to contact me about anything, including wanting me to collaborate on one of your projects you can reach me on thewayoftheshowman@gmail.comor find out more on the Way of the Showman website.you can follow the Way of Instagram where it is, not surprisingly thewayoftheshowman.If you find it in you and you have the means to do so, you can suport the podcast financially at:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/captainfrodo

This week we talk about deception. By learning about the many ways our senses, our thinking, and our limited understanding of logic can be used to deceive us, I am hoping to get us all a little more Carny Wise. We look at how our senses can deceive us. We look at cognitive biases, and logical fallacies. I really think we need to get our ducks in order and use the Way to get Wise to see through illusions. There are deceptions everywhere along the Way, in real life, on social media, and any other media, the only way we can protect ourselves is to change our culture, to get wise to the machination of deception and illusion. This is our project, this is the Way.Make sure you click the inattentional blindness link! Watch it before you get to it in the episode.Show notes.Some cool ways to explore the blind spots in your eyes.Finland teaching kids about misinformation and fake news in primary school.One of our senses beyond the five - the vestibular system - our balance organ.What our eye's blind spots are according to Encyclopedia Britannica. A chart of some cognitive biases.An even bigger chart of 188 biasesGenerally about cognitive biases.Why change blindness happens to us.Intentional blindness article.List of logical fallaciesAwakening from the meaning crisis - this is a 50 hour course by University of Toronto professor John Vervaeke. It’s epic and I am really enjoying it!Support the show...Now you can get t-shirts and hoodies with our wonderful logo. This is the best new way to suport the podcast project. Become a proud parader of your passion for Showmanship and our glorious Craft whilst simultanously helping to gather more followers for the Way.You'll find the store here: https://thewayoftheshowman.printdrop.com.auIf you want to help support this podcast it would be tremendous if you wrote a glowing review on iTunes or Spotify.If you want to contact me about anything, including wanting me to collaborate on one of your projects you can reach me on thewayoftheshowman@gmail.comor find out more on the Way of the Showman website.you can follow the Way of Instagram where it is, not surprisingly thewayoftheshowman.If you find it in you and you have the means to do so, you can suport the podcast financially at:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/captainfrodo

After our mythic and imaginative explorations I think it would be good to remind ourselves that there is a real world out there. We must not get lost in day dreams and "As If" thinking. Social media is a carnival and we aren't really aware of that when we enter through their digital entrances on our phones. This is a rally call for getting wise to the tactics of carnies along any midway, real or digital.Show notes:Seeing Patternstruth spreading slower than fake newsAnton LaVey's Church of Satanthe Making Sense podcast: Welcome to the Cult Factorythe Social Dilemma Netflix documentary.Jimi Hendrix in a field rocking outSupport the show...Now you can get t-shirts and hoodies with our wonderful logo. This is the best new way to suport the podcast project. Become a proud parader of your passion for Showmanship and our glorious Craft whilst simultanously helping to gather more followers for the Way.You'll find the store here: https://thewayoftheshowman.printdrop.com.auIf you want to help support this podcast it would be tremendous if you wrote a glowing review on iTunes or Spotify.If you want to contact me about anything, including wanting me to collaborate on one of your projects you can reach me on thewayoftheshowman@gmail.comor find out more on the Way of the Showman website.you can follow the Way of Instagram where it is, not surprisingly thewayoftheshowman.If you find it in you and you have the means to do so, you can suport the podcast financially at:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/captainfrodo

We go on quite a wander this episode. Starting with the satanic principle of the Intellectual Decompression chamber, we then do a little loop around the importance of employing and becoming aware of what you truly want, your true will. After which we look how this links into the familiar concept of suspension of disbelief only to dive head first into a truly remarkable phenomenon. Something which could have belonged perfectly in last weeks Kingdom of Childhood episode, it's the strange but real As If principle.I leave you with a prod to seriously look into what you really want, and how to use your shows as acts of magick.Show notes:Anton LaVeyAleister Crowley's magick philosophy: ThelemaRichard Wiseman reveals some totally sweet magic!Richard Wiseman demonstrates attention blindness. Very cool.Richard WisemanRichard Wiseman's As If bookSupport the show...Now you can get t-shirts and hoodies with our wonderful logo. This is the best new way to suport the podcast project. Become a proud parader of your passion for Showmanship and our glorious Craft whilst simultanously helping to gather more followers for the Way.You'll find the store here: https://thewayoftheshowman.printdrop.com.auIf you want to help support this podcast it would be tremendous if you wrote a glowing review on iTunes or Spotify.If you want to contact me about anything, including wanting me to collaborate on one of your projects you can reach me on thewayoftheshowman@gmail.comor find out more on the Way of the Showman website.you can follow the Way of Instagram where it is, not surprisingly thewayoftheshowman.If you find it in you and you have the means to do so, you can suport the podcast financially at:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/captainfrodo

After I began releasing the episodes about the Mythopoetic Carnival I discovered a concept within the field of sociology which maps uncannily well onto our own project. I explore these similarities. The concept is the Collective Imaginary or social imaginary as its also called. One of the interesting things we learn from this is that it can change which excites me as I see us Showfolk as potential agents of change.We then have a look at how circus has changed in the popular imagination in the barely three hundred years it's been around. We take a quick glance as to how this reflects, in a funhouse-mirror kind of way, the Way of the freemasons. To wrap up the episode we look at how Sherlock Holmes became realised, made more real, when a bank hired the imaginary detective a secretary to answer his mail for 70 years.Support the show...Now you can get t-shirts and hoodies with our wonderful logo. This is the best new way to suport the podcast project. Become a proud parader of your passion for Showmanship and our glorious Craft whilst simultanously helping to gather more followers for the Way.You'll find the store here: https://thewayoftheshowman.printdrop.com.auIf you want to help support this podcast it would be tremendous if you wrote a glowing review on iTunes or Spotify.If you want to contact me about anything, including wanting me to collaborate on one of your projects you can reach me on thewayoftheshowman@gmail.comor find out more on the Way of the Showman website.you can follow the Way of Instagram where it is, not surprisingly thewayoftheshowman.If you find it in you and you have the means to do so, you can suport the podcast financially at:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/captainfrodo

This time we take a short break from the Mythopoetic Explorations and instead take a look into the strange and beautiful Kingdom of Childhood. We try to understand the denizens with their peculiar vocation of play. Kids, as the inhabitants of the Kingdom are called, play for a living. Their weird, but also wonderful. I used to be one you know. I don't know when I left, but I know that I can't return.We have to sneak a peak over the walls and through the keyhole of the gates since us adults have lost the ability to re-enter. Come join me on this trip to the exotic geography of Childhood.Show notes:Mitch Jones' excellent article.Support the show...Now you can get t-shirts and hoodies with our wonderful logo. This is the best new way to suport the podcast project. Become a proud parader of your passion for Showmanship and our glorious Craft whilst simultanously helping to gather more followers for the Way.You'll find the store here: https://thewayoftheshowman.printdrop.com.auIf you want to help support this podcast it would be tremendous if you wrote a glowing review on iTunes or Spotify.If you want to contact me about anything, including wanting me to collaborate on one of your projects you can reach me on thewayoftheshowman@gmail.comor find out more on the Way of the Showman website.you can follow the Way of Instagram where it is, not surprisingly thewayoftheshowman.If you find it in you and you have the means to do so, you can suport the podcast financially at:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/captainfrodo