Tricks of the Mind (Derren Brown)
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I’m not sure this book is readily available in the US, but get it anyway! It is a great shame that most Americans are blissfully unaware of entertainer Derren Brown (don’t be put off by the scary face on the cover of the book), but one of the best reasons to live in the UK must be access to his delightful, mystifying, and sometimes downright frightening TV series and specials. To call Brown a magician is to focus on only a facet of his skills, as simple illusions and sleight of hand are the least interesting of his feats. More interesting is his genius in manipulating the human mind - most notably yours, as the viewer, and those of random “volunteers” (many “tricks” are man-on-the-street, so the subjects are not so much volunteers as victims, but rest assured Brown’s intentions are to delight and confound, never to humiliate or scar).
I have seen many of his antics - some live as he recently toured the country - and some very memorable ones involve teaching a young girl to play the piano without actually letting her near an instrument, yet she played a recital piece in front of some hundred of her nearest and dearest; hypnotizing a man in a photo booth and awakening him, still in the booth, in Marrakesh; making tables fly around; convincing Simon Pegg that what he really wanted more than anything in the world for his birthday was a BMX bike, even though Simon wrote down earlier “leather jacket” (afterwards, he could not imagine why he wrote that, as he had no need for a leather jacket, didn’t remember writing it down, was completely confused because it was his handwriting, and was completely and utterly over the moon with his new red bike); and leading Average Joe’s to attempt to hijack a bank courier with a squirt gun (this was in a completely safe and controlled environment and any criminal urges were removed from the volunteers’ psyches before they left). If you can’t get his shows on cable or DVD, at the very least please go to YouTube and watch the excerpts there.
He doesn’t give away all his tricks, but one of his trademarks is to disclose to the audience how one of his tricks is done. He is not only a master manipulator (and I mean that in a good way) but a master entertainer, and I have no doubt it would be just as enjoyable to watch him even knowing his techniques. A new series has just started in the UK, so I am looking forward to finding out! The ISBN is 978-1-905-02635-7 so if you have difficulty finding it on Amazon.com either go to Amazon.co.uk where it will be readily available but take 7-14 days to reach you, or go to your local bookseller and see if they can order it (which will probably also take about the same amount of time). What are you waiting for, you clever sausage?