On Second Thought...Mentalism, Meaning, and Performance - Paul Draper - SIGNED

BACK IN STOCK

On Second Thought... Mentalism, Meaning, and Performance

Mentalism lives in moments.

Hi, I'm Paul Draper, and I've built my career exploring those moments... and learning how you can build them with your own audience. This book shares my decades of experience performing mentalism around the world and studying its deep, fascinating history... and this is your exclusive chance to own the first edition hardcover. 

I have entertained audiences from the United Nations to Apple, Cambridge to Yale, and Hollywood to Broadway. I've headlined in Las Vegas and have appeared on TV shows on the History Channel, HBO, A&E, TNT, Hallmark, and HGTV.

For most of my career, I resisted the idea of writing writing a book about mentalism. Mentalism has always been about in-person moments, in whispers and glances, and in theatrical experiences that vanish the instant they happen, but are sometimes spoken of for years to come. Writing feels permanent in a way performance is not.

But there were questions that kept returning, long after the applause faded and the props were packed away.

 * Why does one audience lean forward while another leans back?
 * Why does the same effect feel profound one night and hollow the next?
 * What are we really doing when we ask people to believe, even for a moment?

Eight years ago, I began answering those questions the only way I knew how. Slowly. Once a month, I wrote an article for M-U-M magazine, the flagship publication of the Society of American Magicians.

Those essays became a kind of laboratory. A place to test ideas about performance, psychology, culture, and mentalism shaped by decades on the road and thousands of conversations with audiences around the world. I certainly teach plenty of tricks and methods for stage, television, and close up mentalism. But my real focus has always been thinking. Thinking about why things work, when they work, and why sometimes they do not.

Writing these essays has profoundly shaped and changed my own work. 

This book is the result.

On Second Thought... gathers eight years of acclaimed articles on mentalism and magic, revises them, expands them, and places them in conversation with one another for the first time.

Inside, you will find practical methods and effects designed for real world performance, alongside essays that explore confidence, presence, structure, timing, and meaning. The goal is to give you material that you can utilize to enhance your performance, moreover, it will help you feel more prepared to take the stage, whether that stage is a theater, a boardroom, a classroom, or a conversation that really matters.

NEW, HC w/dj, 308 pages
This book is inside of a beautiful Paul Draperized souvenir box (see photos)

SIGNED by Paul Draper (only available from Paul or Don's Magic & Books)

Thanks to generous Kickstarter contributors, 

Paul has included a fold-out piece of artwork by fine artist Alan Firestone. It is a loving recreation of the original David Devant: All Done By Kindness poster that hangs at the London headquarters of The Magic Circle.

This new image features Paul Draper, alongside many of the most important people in my life and career, plus a few personal favorites of the artist.

This poster was added to the book, in full color, as a pull-out gatefold page. You can enjoy it bound into the book or remove it and hang it on your wall as part of a magic poster collection.