Joshua Jay has made available an online ebook containing over 500 pages of blessings from the "Father" of magic Robert Houdin to the Las Vegas style of Penn and Teller.Taking over 3 years to assemble some of the most important, influential, and helpful essays on magic ever written, Joshua has now made them available to all serious students of magic for free.

Continuing the Busker Central book review series, the list of worthy contributors is truly staggering:

Tommy Wonder
Charles Reynolds
Simon Aronson
Paul Harris
John Carney
Jamy Ian Swiss
Dariel Fitzke
Peter Samelson
Derren Brown
Michael Close
Pit Hartling

Eugene Burger
S.H. Sharpe
Rene Lavand
Robert-Houdin
Henning Nelms
Juan Tamariz
Rick Johnsson
Tom Stone
Darwin Ortiz
Milt Kort
Arturo de Ascanio

David Regal
Doug Conn
Ken Weber
David Kaye
Roberto Giobbi...

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(from the You've got-to-be-kidding-me Department)
One of the themes of 2009 was that collection societies around the world went nuts trying to charge for anything they possibly could while also trying to increase the rates they could charge. Even banks went wild with their hidden charges.

Remember how one collection society wanted to charge a woman because she put on music in public for her horses? Or how about the woman who worked in a grocery store who was told to stop singing while stocking the shelves or the store would have to pay a performance fee? And, of course, we had ASCAP trying to claim that ringtones were public performances, and mobile operators needed to pay up -- beyond the license fee that was already paid on the recording.

SOCAN, the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, has been no exception pushing for drastically increased rates...

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Hello Buskercentral people and all of the other Busker-lovers,

I'm a mid 30's Belgian magician from Antwerp. I'm studying magic since I was about 15 years old, and perform now for already 12 years. I always were more interested in close-up magic, but through meetings with other magicians, I started doing kids-magic on birthday parties, schools, etc...
Because I performed for children, I tried to start performing as a clown-dressed magician. Yet, some years later, I stopped doing those children shows, and I'm focusing pure on sleight of hand magic for the use in close-up and/or parlor magic. Because I have a busy day-job as a European International Courier Driver, I didn't liked the hassle anymore when working with contracts.
For that reason, I will start out Busking here in Belgium as soon as the spring is in the country. I studied a lot of other street performers, as well magic as other arts, and I really want to go out now to Hit the Bricks!!!

The name Mik-Kado is the only thing...

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Creating large floating soap bubbles has been a passtime of mine for many years. I call it "fleeting art" and I let anyone that wants to try it to give it a go. After all the years of doing it and people always asking where my tip jar was, I started putting out a fish bowl for people to donate to help pay for the bubble mix. The City of Monrovia, Ca recreation department and the Monrovia PD have now informed me that I am panhandling/soliciting. I have not been cited yet but have been shut down 2 times. If you have any ideas or suggestions they will be greatly appreciated. I will keep my fellow buskers informed on what progresses in the future. Keep entertaining and making people smile.

(PARIS) Some 1,000 people are expected to compete for 300 prized permits to busk the Paris métro. The auditions, which started Tuesday, are organised by the Paris transport network, the RATP. The 300 successful candidates will be given permission to perform in the underground passages of Paris's underground stations for the next six months, although many more do so illegally.

Interested musicians can apply at 102, rue de Charonne or by emailing RATP at musiciensdumetro@ratp.fr.

Métro busking has sometimes marked the beginning of distinguished musical careers. Keziah Jones, Manu Dibango, Ben Harper all started as buskers.

The auditions continue until the end of October.

www.rfi.fr ...

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