List Price: £10 
Format: ~ Paperback 
84 pages
Size: 12.7 x 20.3 cm
ISBN: 978-1-908009-57-9
Tags: drift, derive, wrights & sites, mythogeography, mis-guide, psychogeography, improvisation, phil smith, simon persighetti

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Crab Man and Signpost. (Photo: Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery, Exeter)

A Sardine Street Box of Tricks

Crab Man and Signpost 

​A guide for anyone making, or learning to make, walk-performances.
A Sardine Street Box of Tricks is a handbook for anyone wanting to make their own 'mis-guided' tour/walk.

Written by 'Crab Man' and 'Signpost' (Phil Smith and Simon Persighetti – both members of Exeter-based Wrights & Sites group), the book is based on the mis-guided 'Tour of Sardine Street' that they created for Queen Street in Exeter during 2011.
The book is designed to help anyone who makes, or would like to make, walk-performances or variations on the guided tour. It describes a range of different approaches and tactics, and illustrates them with examples from their tour of Queen Street.

​For example:
  • Wear something that sets you apart and gives others permission to approach you: “Excuse me, what are you supposed to be?”
  • Take a can of abject booze from the street or a momentary juxtaposition of a dove and a plastic bag and mould them, through an action, into an idea
  • Attend to the smallest things
  • Examine the cracks in your street and the mould on its walls, note its graffiti, collect its detritus, observe how its pavements are used and abused
  • Set yourself tasks that passers-by will be intrigued by: they will enjoy interrupting and even joining in with you
  • Draw upon ambiguous, ironical or hollowed-out rituals to complement the multiplicity of your walk with intensity of feeling or depth of engagement.

Readers' feedback:
  • 'The book has been a revelation...' ~ 'Brilliant...'  ~ 'Inspiring!'   ~  I love the book...'
  • 'Thank you for making a chore-like walk into something more thoughtful.'
  • 'I have been thinking of opening my walk more to the public, so this is very inspiring.'

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About the authors ​Reviews

Related titles:

Alice's Dérives in Devonshire
Counter-Tourism: 
​Handbook
Counter Tourism: 
​Pocketbook
​Desire Paths
Mythogeography
​Rethinking Mythogeography
On Walking 
The Architect-Walker
Enchanted Things
Walking's New Movement
Ways to Wander

Readership

A Sardine Street Box of Tricks is designed to help anyone who makes, or would like to make, walk-performances or variations on the guided tour. It has already been used by performance artists and by students of drama and site-specific performance.