the Way of the Showman
Philosophical and esoteric perspectives from a modern day Showman.
Each season is different in its approach. S1 is essays. S2 is one book length attempt at Understanding Showmanship, S3 is conversations with remarkable Showfolk. The brand new Season 4 explores the relationship between Showmanship and Play.
The host, Captain Frodo, internationally renowned circus performer, director, writer, husband and dad lays out, in great detail, his practical performance philosophy for performers who seek to deepen the conversation with their audiences and themselves. You can find him, and more of his writing at: www.thewayoftheshowman.com
the Way of the Showman
157 - Serious Play and The Road To Joy with Clay Hillman
Step aboard the Punky Steamer and watch everyday moments turn into portals. -> listen to the fantastic tale here!
I highly recommend checking this audio play out before listening to the episode. For one it’s awesome and for sure lots of what we talk about will feel deeper and make even more sense.
We sit down with Clay Hillman—once a Lutheran minister, now the imagination behind a toy-and-coffee shop and the audio adventure KC Bonker’s Road to Joy—to explore how play can be both serious and sacred. Clay’s world is richly built: a flying machine crewed by six archetypes of play, potions served with straight-faced wonder, and an audio play that clicks from past to present like a spell taking hold. The result is a practical philosophy of joy that you can taste, touch, and breathe.
Clay introduces the Aeronaut, Cartographer, Chronaut, Philosopher, Goggle Jockey, and Tinker—personae that map how children experiment and how adults find vocation. When we keep those roles playful, work feels like meaning rather than grind. We dig into “sacred toys” too: stick, string, plane, block, wheel, and ball. Open-ended objects invite agency; they don’t perform for you, they ask you to perform with them. That’s why a simple paper toy can outshine a pricey gadget—it expands your world instead of prescribing one.
Ritual ties it all together. In the shop, dragon blood, beetle juice, and unicorn milk layer in a glass until the final step demands your breath through a one-way straw. That small act completes the drink and inducts you into the story—breath revealing the invisible like a pinwheel turning wind into sight. We trace the same thread through vinyl records, soundscapes, and live showmanship where attention is the real currency. Presence isn’t forced; it’s designed through steps you choose to take.
If you’ve ever felt a toy hold more truth than a lecture, or a performance feel like a pact kept, this ride is for you. Hear how myth, craft, and commerce meet without losing soul, and pick out your own play archetype along the way. If it moves you, subscribe, share this episode with a curious friend, and leave a review telling us the one small ritual that brings you wonder.
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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.com
or find out more on the Way of the Showman website.
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https://www.buymeacoffee.com/captainfrodo
Greetings, fellow travellers, and welcome to the Way of the Showman, where we view the world through the lens of showmanship. I am Captain Frodo, and I will, as always, be your host and your guide along the way. And today we are talking to Clay Hillman. And back in June earlier this year, 2025, an email dropped it dropped into my digital mailbox from Hancock, Michigan. And it told in in a in a wonderful letter. I would have liked that we lived in a time when this was done through proper correspondence and beautiful uh well-crafted paper written with an ink pen. Because that is I haven't uh felt like this as I was reading correspondence since I had correspondence with my good friend Michelangelo from the Michelangelo and the Black Sea Gentleman. Um Clay Hillman is also an example of an anachronistic and wonderfully rich imagination. As um I opened the email and read, it was a wonderful combination of uh a wonderful story that has emerged from his mind about KC Bonkers and the Road to Joy, um, which is a recording, which uh I actually I I recommend you if you if you have. It's just about half an hour, and it's a wonderfully produced um uh audio play. And uh fellow travelers such as yourself who have listened to many of my uh podcasts might remember in episode 100 is perhaps the my strongest uh uh example of my kind of audio plays. Um and it's right in that same vein. And we're finding a lot in our ongoing correspondence, we're finding a lot of uh wonderful um links between his uh story and my story that's called The Clown in the New World from episode uh 100. If you want to read more of my things, then you can find uh the um The Murder of Mystery. Uh I can't remember the episode that came out on, but that's a story of mine, and also um The Way and the Universe, which is another story. I can't remember which episode that is in, but uh episode I believe 21 is uh where I talk about the showman and the showmanship. All of those are examples of my writings where we venture deeper into imagination than in these ordinary episodes. But anyway, as you listen to those and as you most importantly listen to Casey E. Bunker's uh Road to Joy, um, you will then understand a lot uh more about what this uh episode is today, because most of the time I'm speaking mainly to performers. So since we can't have the performance uh happen live, we talk about the performances or talk about performance as an abstract concept. But this time, one of the things that we talk a lot about is an actual um bit of writing, which has then beautifully been performed in an audio play. So I'll uh post a link in the show notes, uh or you'll find it wherever you download your podcast, just underneath the episode. Click on that link and you'll find um find it on Spotify and you can listen to it and then you'll understand um more details about what's going on in uh our conversation. But these uh it'll be this episode and the next episode as well, where we are talking about play. That is, of course, for you, you the truth, what do you call the tried and tested fellow travelers who are long-term listeners, first-time callers, um, you might know that I am very serious about play. And this podcast we have spent 30 episodes coming up this year. It ended this year, but it went out over over about a year where I shared my thoughts on play. And it was then wonderful to talk to another man who has delved into all kinds of aspects of play. And we're going to talk about that as we go, but uh coming out just before um Christmas, um we move the conversation more into uh serious play and sacred play, and we talk about religion, which is kind of uh uh fitting since uh we will be coming up on Christmas. Um so uh with uh that uh introduction um we are going to meet uh from uh Hancock, Michigan. It's Clay Hillman and the world of KC bunkers.
SPEAKER_03:I moved out here in uh 2001 from Portland, Oregon, and I had been living in that real urban, busy environment for about 12 years. Well, I gradually I think you and I are the same age. Um you graduated in '95? Yeah. High school?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. So so I did all my high school out there and stuff, and then I just got really tired of urban and and just kind of busy. So I move out here, and it's quiet, small town. It feels like the Shire. You know, like yeah, I feel like I moved into the Shire, and it hasn't in 20 years, it still hasn't really changed. It still kind of feels like that. So that's another big reason why I just I love it. It allows an artist to kind of have room to think and breathe and take walks and you know and have a little yeah, have a little coffee shop. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I mean, uh let's uh start with the beginning. Maybe first on the so like how did you I mean, I I know from your email a little bit, but uh, how did you first hear about the way of the showman?
SPEAKER_03:Do you okay? So uh when we opened the store in 2015, very soon afterwards, uh a friend of ours knew someone in Minneapolis that she used to work with named Benjamin Domask.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And uh I think he's he said that he's actually talked to you, um, but he was in that 10 years, fast forward 10 years, so we became really good friends. He came up and saw the shop and and became very fast friends, very, very deep friends. And um, so uh that person that invited him up to come look at the store, hey, I think you should see this. Uh, she actually runs the dance studio. And so then, so when we were talking about collaborating on this Road to Joy story, we thought, well, who better to play Casey Bonker than our mutual friend Benjamin? So he came up and he was up here all that week. We did all the rehearsals, and it was a marvelous show. It was just it was more than I could handle uh in terms of just how how meaningful it was. And on the day that he was leaving to go back to St. Paul, Minneapolis, um I said, Well, what are you gonna listen to? Uh what do you what are you listening to? And he told me about your show. And he said, and then he said, Well, he's got this. I listened to uh The Way of the Showman uh by uh Captain Frodo, and I kind of chuckled and he goes, No, that's his real name. And then he goes, and he said, and you know what? I think I think Captain Frodo would really want to talk to you. I think he should, I I think you I think you guys would have a great conversation. So I after he left, I I had put on your show, and then I listened to this was back in May, June. I think I listened to 30, 35 hours. I just started binging it. I got a 20-minute commute to work, so I was just listening all the time. And then when I go pick up coffee beans, that's two hours away. So I was listening to you, you know. So I feel like I know you pretty well, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. At least the way you think. So that's how I that's how I came to to find your show. And um, and then I also know that well, Benjamin's really good friends with um, I saw on your your friends list, you you know, uh, it pops up mutual friends. Uh and Tom Wall and Benjamin, they they work together quite a bit.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I uh I um looked up Benjamin and I look at saw his connection to Tom Wall as well in in preparation for this. So it's a small world. And I mean it's the circus world, and and uh and what's what's interesting to me, of course, is uh that when I am thinking about what the showman is, I have a wider definition or understanding of what that is, on account of being a person that faces the other way and has something to share with others that they've thought through and they hold the attention. So so what I of course hope is that the podcast is of value to uh to people that aren't just doing performances of circuit skills or whatever.
SPEAKER_03:So yeah, exactly. How did you find that? Um I mean that's that's what's so fascinating is because part of my job is behind the counter, and we do some uh we we bring a little like literal magic to people's days, um, you know, just because they're in a toy store getting a cup of coffee. So we have things that we do that just make it just little sparkles. Um so there's a bit of a showmanship there, but really what I was most fascinated with is I was just skimming through the titles of your podcast, and um I was seeing things like that that uh were really resonating with things that I have said just in your title, like being serious about play, you know, um taking play seriously. And so I think that might have been the first one I listened to. Um, and so for me, that's where I was really fascinated with is how much research, how much reading you've done. I was learning a lot. I was writing down a lot of uh authors that I still haven't read yet, but um you you have you've definitely done a lot more of the research than I have. But after listening to you talk for 30 hours, I realized that we've we've really come to a lot of the same conclusions from from different ways, you know. Um, and so I don't have the academic background. I'm watching children, um, I'm thinking about myself as a child. I'm I've raised two kids myself. So so in thinking about all that, and um, and I was also a minister for seven years. So I was actually, I went to a seminary for four years, and then I was a minister for seven, and then I quit that actually to to start the the toy store. Because it was a I wear a lot of hats, but the hood is is just it just didn't quite fit, you know, the the cowl. Um I was a Lutheran, Lutheran minister. Um but so that's so that's how that's how we kind of started this. I just always knew that this this was stuff I wanted to learn about. Um, and then I of course I had to feed my family, so I accepted a call in the ministry to do that, and I was good at it. You know, I left on a good note and all that, but but I knew that there was I needed to do something else that was more more myself and I could kind of stretch out a little bit. Um so having a toy store, we didn't have a toy store in the town at the time. So talking to some friends of mine, um, and they'd always wanted to have a coffee shop, and so we thought, well, maybe we could put that together and doing research on that saw that to this day I haven't found another toy and coffee shop in the world. You know, not that I can find.
SPEAKER_01:It's a great combination.
SPEAKER_03:It is. I mean, it's like I I like to tell people that we it's just it's all stimulants, so we just you know, so and then doing that and having this character of Casey Bonker really behind it, the one that kind of is the the mastermind that has that gave us the like who's like the muse that gave us this idea to put these things together and was kind of like a whole, just trust me, I know what I'm doing, you know. Um uh so we did, we put this together and and have this kind of mythical legend behind the scenes, like a wizard of oz that that nobody ever sees, that we always refer to. You just missed them when he when they come in, that kind of stuff. And then developing his world and really thinking about uh the different play personalities and stuff, and so then we have the crew, and he's got a he's got a flying machine, and um, and so it started to develop into a real like a philosophy of play, but with a uh the the the the vi the what do you say um how you how we communicate that isn't through like an essay, but it's through play itself, you know. So that yeah, so you're getting which I feel really ties it back to kind of like the Greeks, you know, and how they thought about their gods and things like that. They personified these things, and so that's kind of what I've done, and I've I haven't seen it done. Um, and I know people have picked, like some people say there's eight play personalities, some say there's 12 and all these things. Well, we've got six, uh, and it kind of sums it up roughly. You know, you can you can kind of find yourself in one of those crew members. Um, and you heard them in the story, you know, you kind of get introduced to them.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's so that's uh like if you haven't uh listened to it, uh then I will put the link, of course, in so you can click uh click through to this story. It's available on Spotify, so it's really easy to find. It's a 35-minute uh audio book, but it is you have put so much work into the creation and presentation of it. It is not just an audio book, it brings up nostalgia for all of us who had books with tinkerbells, bells that would come, and it means you need to turn the page. It's got the crackling of the vinyl, it's got the um it's got uh soundscapes, the the echo the echo changes depending on where you are inside the punky steamer, the flying machine that is in. So it really is more like an audio play, or so, uh even though it's one person telling the story, it's still it's like you're telling the story, but you're also getting this enhanced um uh uh uh imagined vision of what's going on in the in the story, and uh just like you say, like the Greek, so it also made me think of um of things like Sandman, the comic book The Sandman by Neil Gaiman, where Sandman is the king of sleep and his uh crazy sister is death, and these guys are related, so to personify the to personify these things, I think it's such a rich vein of uh of interest and how to then uh connect how you can connect to it, because although your story is a I mean it's so richly imagined that every little thing that you say uh is filled with images and stuff from all kinds of stories that you you you connect to. But it's still also like you say, it's it's it's about play, as much as it is about a child who's playing goes to bed after a birthday party, where because I've been thinking a lot about that, having a daughter that's turned 13 just recently, and over that period of time, like uh you know, the poem On Turning 10 by Billy Collins, uh anyway, it's like it's how he looks as it looks looks at his bike and it's kind of drained of its speed. And he goes, just a few, just so briefly ago, I could drink a glass of milk in a certain way and make myself invisible, and and he and the child is kind of looking at his things and seeing that some of this is draining away as they turn 10. And I was seeing this, and I was imagining when you when you have that opening scene where there's a birthday party and and the kids come and then play dust. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's just it's all it's awful. Yeah. I find that so interesting the way that you've um you've uh personified all these things and and how it develops. So yeah, maybe maybe uh do a little bit of an uh yeah, because well, maybe I should just ask, because it's like the um the different the six different characters that you have that I also see are on a deck of cards that uh on your website. Uh is that a deck of cards that exists in real life or it's not not yet.
SPEAKER_03:Uh we're actually working on it. It's gonna be uh it's a deck of cards that will be like a standard deck that you can play many games with, uh, but it'll have six suits, uh one for each one for each of the the crew members. Um and there's two additional suits. What's that? Yeah, an additional two suits, right? So you'll be able to play the standard games, but you'll have to kind of rethink them. And so that's kind of what we're doing is we're reimagining a deck of cards as if this is the deck of cards that this is what they use on the Punky Steamer, which is their flying machine. So when they're on their adventures and they need some downtime, this is the deck that they play with. So when we do go to present this to the world, it'll be presented in such a way that that is that is the story behind it. We this was not invented, this was discovered. It's now, you know, if you go to the land where there's goblins, or if you go to the Pirates of Lake Superior, or if you go to the mermaids uh shallows or something, they all have copies of this deck or versions of this deck. And we've we have found um, you know, bits and pieces of different different art and things like that, but this is the most complete version that we've discovered. And so now we're publishing it with, and these are the games that they play. So there's a little bit of a role play just in handling it, that it's more like a relic from a parallel universe that that is still very much connected to our own. Imagine having like a toy that Zeus played with. It's that that kind of feeling, you know. Um yeah, so portal, like a little portal, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Portal of an actual toy, because that's what I was imagining, thinking about your uh store and looking at uh at all the toys, and you kind of go, each one of those toys, because that's one of the things that happens as the kids starts to grow to an age where pretend play and imagine full imaginative play is not so easy to um to kindle, then they sometimes grab onto games where there are then rules and dice, and uh you know, and and the adventurous kids might go into role-playing where there is more imagination, but you can also go into just the straight up die game and and snakes and ladders, which is like and then they start to follow the rules and uh and that that that kindles. So, in that way, each game is a potential portal back into play.
SPEAKER_03:Exactly, exactly. And so you don't, you know, you might think that you outgrow it, but you don't really. You just keep you need to just keep being reminded, you know, that it's still there. And I mean, that's kind of the point of that story, even was to um that this power of play can actually overcome even a terrible birthday party where you go to bed very, very sad. And um yeah, so that so like in the in the story, I think it's told in like the second person. Um, so you are the child, and so you're brought right into it. Um and you notice that the the the children at the beginning of that birthday party, they've kind of grown up in their head, you know, so they're distracted and they're rude and they're leaving early, and they pop his balloon, and at least in the in the in the actual show, I think he gets his balloon popped. Um uh and so he goes to bed very upset and in a very in a sigh that normally is like a sigh that's of grief and of suffering, but even that sigh sets the pinwheel spinning, and that's what kind of sets off the journey, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Um and then he flies to the moon, basically. And then he makes it turns it into a rocket ship and exactly.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and then he meets the aeronaut, the first character, which is um, you know, the the crew member that that represents the kind of the is she's she's like the archetype of all sort of movement play. So kids that love to to drive their toy cars or ride their bikes, kids that are really into sports and moving their bodies, dances, any sort of physical movement um or performance, even, is uh is all represented by the aeronaut. And and he finds her, she's giving the man on the moon a little break. So she's driving the moon for the night, and that's why it's red. That's why it's this. So even there, you have like an ominous uh evening. It was a terrible birthday party, looks up, sees a blood moon, which is usually not a good sign, but gets up and finds out that, oh, it's just it's one of Casey Bonker's crew members doing a nice turn for the man on the moon, and that's why it's rich, because she's always dressed in red. Um, and then from there meets the uh, I'll just go through them, meets the uh uh the cartographer, I believe, is next. Um who is she's she's in the stars, right? So the cartographer is the one that represents uh and embodies, I guess, the the feeling of exploration um and discovering new things and and people that love to map out things and organize and make charts and and I mean even the feeling of just loving maps, you know, uh, and also then would also encapsulate, I guess, like the visual arts, um, and also collecting things, like collecting things becomes a way of playing. So like I loved she loves to explore places and bring those things back as little collections. So so that's kind of all of hers. Then then he's on or the the the child is on to uh meet the chronaut, which is the time traveler. And she is uh I don't know if you noticed, but we switch the tense in the story if you pay attention. It starts, it's all in the past tense, and when they meet the when when when you meet the chronaut, the story all of a sudden dings into the present tense. Yeah, because she actually tells the child, you must you gotta be in the present moment, you know, and then in that moment is all of time. But the chronaut is herself is is big on like uh music, stories, book reading, you know, like anything that will kind of take you to another place. You can do that in your play, you know, um, as a as a form of time traveling. Reading a book, like reading Lord of the Rings or something like that is a form of time travel, or hearing a song about something could could give you hope for the future, it could make you reminisce for the past. And then from there, uh meets the philosopher who whose thoughts are so vibrant they actually are like little butterflies. Um, and the of course, the philosopher, I think of you as kind of a philosopher, uh, very much so, you know, someone who loves to play with ideas and is really um and also the philosopher would also be like the person that loves playing board games and chess and strategizing, anything to do with really thinking and wonder, you know, just staring and looking up at the stars and wondering why we're here and all that is all very philosopher type type stuff. Um and then ends up uh that's where the philosopher is pretty close to the where the punky steamer is parked. So you climb on board, and I'm trying to think, I think you meet the the goggle jockey. Yeah, and the goggle jockey is the one that's in charge of the goggles on the ship, and also is really kooky. So you're looking at uh the character that embodies like all the silly play, you know, novelty and jokes and magic tricks, and and um, and also that would be like your personification on stage, you know. I I think of you as like the goggle jockey personified. Like, like I've watched your your videos and I'm like, man, is that the goggle jockey if I've ever seen him? You know, uh it's just it's just perfect. Uh so that's the goggle jockey. He's really in the bowels of the punky steamer, and he's in charge of like running all the machinery and keeping the steam right, and and um, of course, the the punky steamer is fueled by not coal but by coffee beans, you know, so there's a lot of high energy down there. Um, and then the last character you meet is the the tinker, and this is every kid that loves Legos and making houses of cards and building or destroying or fixing or all that stuff. And of course, all of those ways of playing are things that we do as a child, but also we make careers out of somehow. I mean, I think almost anybody can think about their career and think, well, what character would that be? You know, and you can it kind of falls in line, or maybe it's a blending of a few of the characters or something, but um I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:I I yeah I think that's I I think that is that last uh thing you said there, picking up on that, that's really good because it's I mean, I sometimes get so lost in ideas. And my I made well, however many episodes it is, 30 episodes it is about play, where I'm exploring what play is, and and part of why it is so much is because of my interest in play. And I when I and I believe that play is so important, and because I believe that, I have that first in my heart. So I'm not doing science in that way because I already know that play is good and uh that it's important, and then I read into it uh to find uh the the more academic or philosophical uh foundations of this because I believe it. And of course, it's it uh the world is filled with people who have thought uh so much about it. So these 30 episodes is to kind of to give you the argument for all those people who think that play is a frivolous activity, that that means that they don't actually understand it. And I love what you just said here with how um the six uh different characters that uh um that uh the the child meet on the way through this ship, that that they are the embodiments of how you of a job that you could do, but it's you being in a right relationship to your work. It's when it's not just a job where you go in but and and do it out of mechanics or just for the money, but it is those jobs that you do that if you didn't get paid, you would still be doing it. Those things that are hobbies or that are play, and and that each one of those is an embodiment of of the goggle jockey in powering the machine and the philosopher and the cartographer who who lays out where they're going, or so and the interplay between these. So that's what's so wonderful about your story as an addition to, or so as a mythopoetic exploration of what it is that I'm talking about, because we're talking about the same thing, but you're talking about it through play instead, and I find that uh really beautiful.
SPEAKER_03:It's it's it's engaging because um, I mean, so many of our myths, we can hear them our whole life, and then we get to an age and we go, oh, that's what that's that's what that means, you know. And so it's a way that any any age can enter into a story that has these archetypes and get something of it. I mean, you watch most remember the old, I say old, because I feel like Pixar had its heyday, you know, back in the day. Uh the the movies were just seemed to be better for a while. Um, but all ages could enjoy them because there was something to get on every level, you know. Um, and in this one, of course, there's like you mentioned, there's the nostalgia of having the old record that was telling you the story and things like that, but also um it feels somehow fresh and modern. Um to me, it to me it does anyway, you know.
SPEAKER_01:It it it absolutely does, and it's the it's uh perfectly placed like the chrono naught uh in the past, but also it's looking into the future of this is this is the way forward, but also any kid or any person who's got a child alive still inside them will be drawn into the immediate moment of what's going on in this story. And exactly I think your way of swapping from past tense to present tense is a really good move as well. It's like the kid is kind of playing and you're before the game, fully um before you fully let lean forward and get into the play, you're still uh placing characters in, like in the beginning of a book when you're reading it. It's always a little bit hard. It's harder the beginning of the book because you've got to imagine yourself in who is this about or whatever. But at some point, those characters come alive, like looking at a Marionette show, and at some point that little puppet just you it comes alive. The ventrilophysis that's there, it's a little bit, and all of a sudden your brain swaps into something, and now this is a new reality, as real as anything else. You're not because you are confusing what stories. And what's not, but that you see the most important parts that is hard to find in the real life becoming the focus of the story.
SPEAKER_03:Exactly. And actually, a few things on that. I mean, I think it was actually Benjamin that gave me the idea to flop that to the present tense or do something with the tense with the chrononaut. And so that's what we we did there. Also, it's kind of, he called it the princess bride effect of like where the kids reading the story and then it becomes, you know, present tense. Um, and you talk about that. Uh, that was another thing that I found. Um you talk about that a lot with like when you enter into you're playing with your dog, you know, and all of a sudden there's that moment that click, and now you're only in the present moment. And that is like you've entered into this, you're really in play now. You're in play, and the rules are different, you know. Um your sword becomes a wooden sword, your teeth become like a little softer, you know, like so it doesn't bite so hard, you know. That like so it's it it you literally enter into a parallel universe, and that is that is the getting onto the the punky steamer.
SPEAKER_01:You know, you're you're in this play mode now, and it's so interesting as well, I think, because we as adults uh you know we seek this thing. I need to be more present in my life, I need to, and people do it through uh my meditation. And I have had my uh hours on sitting there uh with being mindful, and it is impossible. It's like you're gonna count, you're gonna count, uh get one, two, three, and when your mind is distracted, start again. And I'm like, oh, it's gonna be boring with all this counting. But then one, two, or how long is this gonna? Oh, there I go. One, two, yeah, and you realize that you can't be in the moment, but through the act of play, you can find yourself easily pulled into and just being in the moment. Whether that play is imaginative play, which I always see the fully embodied, imagined play of children when they're playing roles within the shared universe, which at any time can be changed. The rules go okay. Well, this is now the mountain, and this is now this thing, and then if anyone uh anyway, I think that's that's in that space, that fully embodied space, you can stay there, or whether it's reading as well. So you're reading Lord of the Rings, and you can and you're fully into the story, and all of a sudden, an hour, three hours have gone, and you have just completely fallen into it.
SPEAKER_03:Right, right. The Chronaut has has taken over, you know, like yeah, she's she's right there on your shoulder, kind of thing. Yeah, I know. That's my I think my favorite my favorite thing to ever watch when my kids were little was we had I I still saved a lot of my old Fisher Price toys um with the little people, and my daughter Irene would be playing with them and just completely lose herself, two years old, but could be just enraptured for hours at a time until she got hungry. Like, and and it was there was a a world that was more real than the living room that she was playing in, you know. Yeah, and it was so fascinating. And I could remember myself being there. Um, it's a lot harder as an adult to get to that kind of place. And it feels awkward like you're in a different skin or something. I think clowns are really good at teaching us to do that and bringing us into that world. Um, but other because otherwise it's very difficult, you know.
SPEAKER_01:It's interesting. My my daughter, I've been watching her, that's my own case study on on seeing seeing it, where I have one of my episodes on the kingdom of play or whatever, is trying to picture this of me on the outside and seeing you're growing up and you're you're gaining adulthood or whatever, but you're also losing these keys to the kingdom of play, where you would be in there and you don't understand why the adults are always going on about the most boring things. Yeah when this is a very we could just do this all the time. And I remember back in the day reading reading books and finding it irritating that there were antagonists in the story that there had to be villains, and then the other day, uh oh, it's a little while ago now, my daughter was watching something. I think it was the secret life of pets, which is whatever. But it's in there, life goes on, and then something terrible happens, which we know as the inciting incident, and this is what we want. But she voiced something like why does it always have to be uh like I want to just be in that world as it is, I don't want it always to be that this is when it falls apart, or yeah, it's like Toy Story. They all start at the time when the when that thing is breaking apart, which you know is that stories without that can be boring, but that's that's so but um but it's interesting that thing of where the child just goes, I don't need the excitement of that, I just need people to be within the world and just explore it or so.
SPEAKER_03:Right, right. Yeah, and and actually, and I mean it does actually happen in in this in this story too, because of course, once once the the child gets on the ship um and she sees that the ship itself is almost a character in that it kind of greets Casey Bonker, who walks on the ship like by walking off of a rainbow, basically, you know, and then gathers the crew and says something's gone very wrong. But as the stowaway now, um, you're not comp it's like it's not really your problem. You know, this is their problem, and I'm just gonna kind of be along for the ride. And it's not it's not like you're uh that invested, but it's there's a curiosity. What's gonna happen? How are they gonna solve this? We've got this. I mean, Casey Bunker says that there's a there's the giant, faux fum, who has stolen this sweet, innocent, pure, the purest thing, which is a baby unicorn named Bloom Blossom. You know, I like the most innocent, pure thing you can think of. And he's taken this, and we gotta go find it. We gotta bring it back to the unicorn sanctuary. Um, and so that's and then that's actually that that's the end of act one is they they take off to go on this adventure. So that whole act was just sucking you in slowly, pulling you, pulling you until you're actually standing on the deck of the punky steamer. There's Casey Bonker, and we've got they've got their mission, you know.
SPEAKER_01:This is the call to adventure, kind of, and then you're gonna have to do that. It's a call to adventure. Exactly. Flip the page and uh no, not flip the page, you have to flip the record, uh, and it's got that beautiful thing that uh they used to do where it goes to the end going flip and it goes uh goes back, and all of this, which which gives an an embodiment or something. I think people are leaning towards that now more and more, where you don't just want the uh the digital copy being listened to or streamed on some server somewhere. You want the album and you have a double album and you open it up and it's got pictures and all this kind of stuff. It's yeah, and which is good both because you have the actual object with the art or whatever, but also we know that the way that streaming goes is that uh you just heard that the average person who's streaming on Spotify is making$12 a month. So you got so you can't live from your art in the way that you maybe used to, or whatever. So now live shows is is growing and uh and buying vinyl, buying cassettes, buying objects that have been made by them. So all of a sudden you buy one album of them and it's the same as a million streams or whatever, because the streams are worth nothing. So going to concerts and buying those, I think that it's it's it's like it's like having that relic from another world, right? It's like it's the it's the portal into their world or whatever, and you put it on, and it's there's the ritual of taking the vinyl out of the sleeve and you put it on, and it's something that if you're a child or whatever, you have to be a little bit careful with it. So it's it's fragile, but so rich if you use it in the right way, which to me has a lot of um, it has the potential, at least anyway, to be to be registered as ceremony or or ritual.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, for sure. For sure. There's almost a spiritual aspect to that. Yeah. Um and I actually forgot to mention that the chronaut really has more of that the chrononaut and the philosopher are both kind of in that spiritual realm, but almost more of the chronaut because of the timelessness, the ability to to move around like that. And she, even the way I think of her in my mind, I almost think of like the Virgin Mary, you know, like uh like that real ethereal um or like or Galadriel, you know, like um uh but yeah, yeah, to have to have that that that physicality um of a of like I'm holding this what they used to call it a licorice pizza, uh a vinyl record. Um holding that is like you're holding the physical music, you know. Yeah, um, and I actually learned to read, I think, on those books. I don't have any memories. I know my dad read to us kids a little bit when we were really young. I remember the books that he read, but it wasn't for very long. But then my mom had gotten a big stack of those little storybook, little golden book records. And uh she'd give me and my brother like three or four of them, and then we'd listen to those and listen to those until we kind of, and then she'd she'd slip us another three or four of them. I think she had probably picked up a big stack at a garage sale or something, and then just slowly trickled them out. And yeah, I remember I remember the feeling of of uh reading along with these, and then I picked up one of the books without the record, and I just sat down and I read it, and I was like four. And I remember getting to the last page going, I just read that. I just read every I read every word of that on my own. And yeah, so it was between those golden books and Sesame Street that was taught me to read.
SPEAKER_01:The interesting thing about that also is like uh, I mean, I went to a Waldorf school, and there, you know, the the power of memory when you are that young, when even by the time you start school at seven or whatever, six or seven, you your memory is so strong that there's no doubt in my mind that you actually knew that book completely by heart. Sure. You know, you are you're exposed to the to the alphabet, uh, and you sort of know the sounds, but now you can look at that word and you know what it means because you know you know what the words are. Yeah, but it's as an as an inner uh uh you've learned it by heart, and I love this by heart. It's now it's it's something that is part of you. You've you you know it in the way that I know my scripts when I when I do my acts or whatever. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So I mean, yeah, because I mean I guess I could think I could think that maybe I just had that book memorized, but I could read kind of anything after that, you know. And I think it was just putting together what Sesame Street was teaching me about like cook ookie, cook ookie, cookie, you know. I I recognized the letters and then I I knew what was being said by because the record was telling me what was being said, and I just it just all clicked and I was just reading, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think there's it's a powerful thing that, and it's like you you you know it by heart, so now you know what each of these words in front of you, how they're supposed to sound. So you're sitting there sounding out the words, and you so you start to sound, but you also know what the next words are. So you you're you're you're doing that uh mapping, putting two things on top of each other, which of course it's like in the book, like uh the metaphors we live by as an academic book or whatever, but the day the argument that metaphor is the actual machinery of thinking. This is how we think, it's to take one thing and put it on top of another one. We learn the things we don't know by seeing how it is like what we already know, and there will then be a gap of where it is not like what we already know. And that is metaphor means to transfer or to carry over. And in a sense, I then see that the metaphor is what carries you over that gap, and you are then left with some things that you and you see them in the light of the other one. So so I think that the book, as you're got it memorized, you know the story, and then you got the the the abstract black squiggles on the page, but you know that these are carrying the meaning, and then you overlay those two things, and and as just like with the flip in your head where you are looking at somebody doing object theater with puppetry or whatever, all of a sudden these things come alive. That's like an actual flick of a switch. And the same thing can happen when you they sometimes talk about cracking the code of reading, where all of a sudden you just go, Oh, yeah, I just see the pictures now.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and it's and there's a there's a thrill to it, it's the same thrill of uh well, it's play, right? That learning is is actually play. I love how you say, like, when the teacher says, Um, um, okay, we're gonna play this game and learn about uh money, you know, or something like that. And then we play this game and we learn about, and then they then the kids say, Well, can we go play now? Because they know the difference, you know. Yeah. Can we go outside and actually play now? This was nice try, you know. We we can see through that. Um and I love that because it's it's how I it's how I approach so much of the store, uh the toy store and stuff that um like the baristas when they go into this, we make these magic potions for kids and adults for that matter.
SPEAKER_01:There's a great great clip of you making uh making uh uh dragon blood. Dragon blood, and then you put some some beautiful like the way the uniform is set up.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's all it's all there. We're wearing the goggles and and um but but the the whole thing to that is just talk about it like you're just making a a coffee drink in a in a nice coffee shop, you know, like it's you're dead serious the whole time. You're just dead serious about while our dragons are from um sometimes we actually say like northern Norway or something, but uh or Hanaly. You know Scandinavia, yeah, some Scandinavian dragons, and so they're cold-blooded, so their blood's a little sweet on the sweeter side, and um and they're it's freely donated at Dr. Puff's Dragon Blood Donation Center. Um, you know, Dr. Puff, uh he when he when he stopped coming, when Jackie Paper stopped coming to see uh Puff the Magic Dragon, he went off to med school and founded this dragon blood donation center. And so that's where our dragon blood comes from, because we're members of the FTFC, which is the fair treatment of fantastical creatures. So that means that in order to get this license, that we have to treat all of our creatures as complete, you know, and and total fairness and nobody's been harmed or anything. Um, so when you're drinking our beetle juice, you might be thinking that's actually smashed beetles, but beetle juice is actually just a collection of their coughs when they get the sniffles, and then we wring out the tissues into these vats, and then Casey Bonker picks them up, and so that's what you're drinking. But beetle mucus doesn't sound as appetizing, so we call it beetle juice, you know. And just say it, and then what's what what what almost always happens is especially with adults, is they'll at first they're kind of giggling, and then they stop and they just start, they they play with you. They just start in with you. They're like they'll have questions about well, what what kind of are they younger or older dragons? Or or they'll add to the story themselves. And uh, and so it becomes like we just build this whole conversation. And look, we are now two years old playing with those little people. You know, we've entered into that world of pretend because we've just treated it seriously. That's the whole, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and and it's again, it's the um this you have an uh a portal through the actual drink. You have a real glass that they are gonna get their drink in. So you're pouring the dragon um blood out of a carafe of of cut crystal, and you're not making any big deal out of it, just talking and you're pouring it in. That's in the bottom. Then comes out of the tap, comes the uh clear, bubbly thing, and whatever that is, and then they separated. Yeah, so they stay separated, and then when you put the unicorn milk in in a beautiful uh dispenser that looks like it's a normal milk dispenser, but it's clearly it's clearly marked with unicorn milk, and you put that in, and it looks like clouds inside, and then you're gonna use your straw that comes out of a wonderful dispenser. So, in one way, and that's this sort of thing that helps adults into it too. In one way, first you're going, hey hey, yeah, that's funny, or that's cute, or whatever. Yeah, but as all of the objects that you're using are this is a real shop making a real drink, and the things that you're saying about clouds, or that's harvested by from the punky steamer when they're out, and and then you pour it in, and then you see the woman who's uh talking to you, how she goes, and she can't she can't help herself because it looks like the clouds. And at this point, she is she is leaned in, as I call it with the in the shows. It's like when you're going now, you've gone from uh looking at it, and your attention you you you have her attention first, she's paying attention, but then at one point she is interested, and she is now part of the story, and she is leaning in and looking, and and that's that's that thing of you're just and then uh I love the final touch is the uh the straw.
SPEAKER_03:These are these are just they're not real straws, they're just toys, they're toy straws. You're in a toy store after all. So the air does not work in the straws, normal straws. There only goes one way, it's a one-way straw. So you have to put the straw in upside down, all the way down to the bottom of your drink where all that initial blood is, and blow bubbles. That thing that your grandma tells you not to do. Stop playing at the table, stop blowing bubbles in your milk. No, this is a potion that comes with directions. You must put it in upside down, and you can tell by the stripes on the straw which way it goes, you know. And so people are often like, they're so into it, they're staring at their straw, they're like, is this the right way? Like grown adults, you know, is this the right way? I'm like, well, just put it in and try it. And if you can't blow bubbles, well then you've got it in the wrong way. You know, so like as soon as they blow bubbles, like, ah, good, you know, first guess, you know. So then they blow bubbles. And and I I had one barista years after we opened, somebody started blowing bubbles, and he says, You see, when you start blowing bubbles, you are the bubbler. And it was like, whoa, now it's become like this mystical communion.
unknown:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:You know, like bubbler, as in like you're the one blowing bubbles, but you've also become one with your drink. And then when you're done blowing bubbles, you flip the straw back over, and then off you go.
SPEAKER_01:But it's also there, too. It's what's clever about it in terms of um coaxing adults into play is that when that drink is uh finished, uh uh or whatever, you have you've uh poured in the different things, you have a glass in front of you which has a clear uh nether world or earth, and then it's got the clear, so it's so it's got the red, solid red. Then you got the clear bit in the middle, which is the bubbly water or the bubbles, and uh, and then at the top, then with the dash of the full cream uh unicorn milk, like it looks like the world in a sense. You got the clouds lying at the top, and the drink is not finished because if you put your straw in now, you will be drinking the different ones. So you're giving them the straw, it needs to be the right way up, and then you need to blow. It's not just that we go blow in your drink, it's that it's clear that the drink is not mixed yet, and you don't stir it for them. So, although you say put your straw in and now you need to blow, it is play, but it is also what needs to be done for this drink to be finished.
SPEAKER_03:Exactly. Because otherwise we'd call it a mixer or a stirrer or a swirler, but these are bubblers, you know. This is a specific kind of drink. So and actually, that's kind of interesting. I I've I've thought about over the last 10 years and in in kind of slowly developing this whole world, that I've realized that um the the the blowing on the straw, um the how much air has to do, like uh thinking about Casey Bonker as really a spirit of the air, if he was one of the elementals, you know, um there's the fact that the punky steamer is a flying machine, there's clouds on your drink, you're blowing uh air in your straw to get things to move. The pinwheel itself is a big it is like our central symbol. Um, I like to say that the pinwheel is the toy that reveals the invisible, which is the air, you know. So like air, and you can hear it in the story if you're paying attention to that there's bubbles around the giant and things like that. Like air has so much to do with it, even if it's the sigh of grief, it still is the beginning of of play. It's free, it's floaty, it's um, but it also has a very practical purpose, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and and it's like there is uh in the in the early Greek uh uh uh words, pneuma was both uh soul and also wind. Exactly, exactly. The further back we go in time, the more uh pictorial a language goes, as opposed to the way that one when you talk to uh uh about language from a strictly scientific point of view, then we started saying ug for rock and art for fire or whatever. There was just these, and then at some point at an undefined time, somebody went, Hey, maybe this could mean also this. Whilst yeah, and they add kind of poetics or whatever.
SPEAKER_03:And and and perhaps because they really they they perhaps really actually thought that we were like our spirit was air, you know, like this is what I think.
SPEAKER_01:I think that in the language and the older when you look at the older the languages, they always have those things as a duality, like spirit, and those they those words have a practical thing, but they also have so like the it has the actual wind, but it also has the um soul or spirit in it, is near minds like those words, and when you go back in time, they all have this duality, yeah. They have the both of those things happening at the same time, and we go, oh, it could mean this, but then at some time they added this picture. But back then it was actually both, and I think you're hitting the nail uh with this. It's like the the the way that the wind and the spirit and and uh and he breathed air into them.
SPEAKER_03:It's like yeah, you're breathing life, and and that's what's so cool about the you know, this is when we started with those bubbler drinks, there was no that we didn't say, okay, we're gonna make this metaphorical for blah blah blah. Um, or uh even even in in in thinking about and and kind of like meeting or discovering the crew of the punky steamer, like we started the store, all we knew was there was a Casey Bonker. We didn't know anybody else or that he had a ship or anything. It's all just slowly developed. But now, after even uh in in telling that story, noticing, oh my gosh, that there's so much air involved here and how important it is with the pinwheel, the blowing. Like when you when you take your bubbler and now you give it to them, and or you you you give the the the customer the the bubbler um and you say now you have to blow on your straw, it's like okay, now it now you have to actually play. Now you now you actually have to do it. So you get brought to that point, and now this drink actually needs a piece of you for it to work. And that's I mean, that's that's in the story too about when Casey Bonker um it doesn't say it. I realize that in the in the story, in the audio story, he doesn't actually say what the gift is that he's giving the giant, but you'll see it on the thumbnail what it is. He's giving him a pinwheel. And because the whole idea is you have to actually take part in this. You have to actually, you know, the best toys are the ones that don't do anything, they're the ones that you have to create and and make to go, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Unfinished toys, the ones that like in World of It's Big With Famous for having the the dolls and stuff, have got no kind of face on it. They have like some of them might have just three stitches and five stitches for a mouth. There's not even an expression because the toy that comes, as much as I love Star Wars figurines, did as a child and does as an adult. Yeah, it's a different thing. They come with they come with and I mean but at the time though, when I was a kid, I hadn't even seen those movies, and I loved those toys, so I wasn't restricted by um just saying if you're playing and then somebody plays with a toy that comes from a Marvel movie or whatever, someone might say, Hey, that he doesn't do that, she doesn't do those things because I've seen the movie and then the game is kind of destroyed. Now you're just reenacting a movie, and then it's not there's no no real.
SPEAKER_03:And Waldorf does have those kind of toys. That's why I like the Fisher Price characters too, because they were kind of like the same idea.
SPEAKER_01:They're stripped back, so that you have to add that into it. And as it turns out, when you when we were kids and we were putting uh matchsticks into pine cones to make animals and you make all of this, it's like it does not need to be an exact reproduction for you to embody it with soul or and soul it as I like to call it when you're when you're playing as a child and you get this new toy, and then this thing becomes alive, even though it doesn't move or it doesn't, but yeah, it's yeah.
SPEAKER_03:The best toys are kind of like they're they're more like uh they're more like props. You know, like if you pick up a stick and it becomes a magic wand or a wooden sword, you create the world around the toy. It doesn't create the world around you. Um, like a lot of toys, kind of like you're you kind of push a button, watch it go, or do something like that. It's it's inviting you into its world. But rather, I think, and those are fine as toys. There's like levels to them, right? There's I think in the story too, I talk about there's knick knacks, and they're kind of like in the twilight.
SPEAKER_01:Distraction. Yeah, lovely.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, exactly. Yeah, the knick-knacks of distraction. They're they're they're kind of in the twilight of toy. They are they I always think of the knick-knacks at grandma's house, you know, and you're like, can I play with that? What's it for? What's it doing there? It's just sitting there. Some people believe they bring in energy into the house and things, so they can be good luck or bad luck, and and that's kind of how they function in the story. But but the best toys are the ones that are more like uh it's more like a tool that that you the world is then built around it. You know, I think of Van Gogh's shoes, those shoes that he paints. Yeah, and it's you could look at it and say there's just an old beat-up pair of shoes, but then it actually starts like, well, who was wearing those? Well, it must have been someone poor. And well, there's dirt, so they must be a farmer. And it's sucking in this entire world, and it's a very simple image, you know. And those I think those very simple toys, I call them the sacred toys. They're the uh they're actually the six suits in this in the deck of cards, too. There's the string, which is like a one-dimensional moving line, and then there's the the plane, which is like what kites and paper airplanes, and it's just a flat surface. And that can be almost a cape, a parachute, you know, there's all kinds of things. There's a there's the block, which is anything kind of three-dimensional, um, and and brickish. Uh and then so and then there's the the stick and the the wheel and the ball. You know, there's just one, two, and three dimensions in both like very straight angular things and in round curvy things.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And that and then you can combine those. If you've got like two wheels and a string, you've got a yo-yo. If you've got a plane, two sticks, a string, you've got a kite. Um, so like the best the best toys are also usually built out of just those six, those six toy, those six sacred toys.
SPEAKER_01:That's right. And having those things available for the children, uh, then uh it is like a gold mine that you dig through, and no matter what you're doing, you will come out with something. Yeah. Strings is tied together between two cans or between two toilet things. And whether it works or not, it's now become or it's microphones to sing in when those have been used in one game, and next time it gets reappropriated. Yeah. And it's yeah, it's it's so.
SPEAKER_03:I I know that when I was a kid, I've got a lot of I draw on a lot of stuff from my childhood and my kids' childhood and in developing a lot of the background and stuff at the store. And uh one of the things I remembered is my dad came home, he was a plumber for a while, and he came home with this little block of wood that was like a little rectangular, like a two by four that had been cut at a slight angle on one end. And he came home and he put it on the table. I don't know what he was probably just in his pocket, and my my brother and I stared at it. And so my dad comes over and he draws wheels on the side, and he says, Okay, now it's a car. And then he's then he draws these little lines on the side and he says, But those are wings, and it floats. We fought over this little block of wood, you know, because it was the coolest thing ever. It could do all of these things at the same time. And I there's something similar happened when my kids were little. I had a piece of PVC pipe and a rubber ball that was like a hollow, like racket ball. I put a slit in it and I stuck it on the end because my daughter wanted a microphone. So I stuck that on the end and I put some spirally tape down to hold it on. And that toy got used more than anything else. It was there was their cane, it was their, you know, you think of all the things you can do with a stick, you know, a microphone, it was a magic wand. It was a sometimes it was a bow and arrow, it was a um uh a baseball bat. Like you said, depending on the day, what they were feeling like. It just became a new prop. Same thing, new prop.
SPEAKER_01:Um it's interesting when it's also thinking of what you were saying, it's the um the the the toys that are uh that are speaking or moving or doing a certain thing. That to me feels like it's similar to when the teacher says, today we're gonna play shop, and you're gonna be the shopkeeper, and you're going so it's like adults who have colonized the kingdom of play, and they are they're speaking the words and they're doing the things, but you're going, you're looking at them and you're going, you are a hollow representation of this. Like it looks like play, but we are in for a child, they're going, we're in this uncanny valley where we are going through the motion and it should be play, but they know in their heart that it isn't real play. So as long as that thing you're just sitting there watching and you pull the string and the doll says it, or sweet baby Yoda does what he does in the movie in the toy, and it's like you are now not participating in the play, but you are watching, which I think what a great example of that is the tickle mielmo doll that all the adults wanted to buy, but did the kids did they play with that?
SPEAKER_03:Was that their favorite toy? Was that the you know? Um, I talked to a lot of parents that they'll spend a lot of money at the sh at this at the shop here at Christmas, and they'll come in and say, you know, those little uh we called them Chinese yo-yos. It's like a piece of paper wrapped around a stick that they kind of shoot out, you know. They say this is this was their favorite toy. It cost me 50 cents. And out of all the other stuff, I got them Playmobil and I got them some building construction blocks, and I got them these books, and this was what they wanted to play with all day, you know. And it was because I was like, Yeah, because it's a prop. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so so it's a it's a there's a lot of when it comes to curating, of course, the a toy store. I have to think of all those things, but also I do want to get some of the things that the kids want, even though I'm like, it's not gonna be it's not that good for you in terms of a toy, but I'll carry some of those things, but you know.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, this is just a balance too. You can't like for as much as we would like to go, these are the things that are good for you, like you should eat your broccoli or whatever. Yeah, we also need those other things, and you guys are making the drinks and they are sweet and they are whatever. It's because it's it's that it it's we're in the we're in the toy store, and here it's different. And you also to some extent, me you know, being uh an artist working within the field of entertainment, yeah. So that means if you're an artist, you can give any kind of emotion, it can be anger or indifference or boredom or whatever, if you're just a pure in an art um uh what is it called, gallery or whatever. But if I am working in the field of entertainment and the contract that we have signed when they put down their dollar and come and go and see me, is that all definitions of entertainment has the word joy or enjoyment in it. It has it has to capture their imagination immediately and bring them in and to carry them along like a guide. I can't just be on the outside and behave weirdly.
SPEAKER_03:So I'm and they know when you're and they know when it's inauthentic, right? They know when it's not genuine and they're being scammed or something like uh I think even that I think you've talked about that in some carnivals, you know, you pay some money, you go in, you're kind of disappointed. Like, what the heck was that? That wasn't what I was advertised. But if they can walk in and then you do a show as uh and they actually feel the joy that was in the poster, you know, they actually feel that wow factor that they were advertised in a genuine way. They don't feel ripped off. In fact, they feel like they feel like they would have spent a lot more money on that had they known, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's right. You gotta take that time and you gotta refine it for them so that the time that's the that's the bottom line of our contract. It's that at the end of it they feel like their investment, and I don't just mean in money, because the because the cash value of of reality is not money, it's uh time and attention. What you do with your with your time and the attention that you pay when you're there. Like that's that's what it really is about. So that's what they're sacrificing in in the deepest sense. They yeah they come in and they choose to do be with you for this next hour rather than anywhere else. And yeah to take that seriously and to make sure that you're giving them not just uh beautiful things to look at, but to participate in it, and that I'm trying deliberately, I'm trying to hit them emotionally, and I'm trying to hit them in the heads. I'm trying to hit the head and the heart and the hands. I want to have them watch me try to balance the spoon on my nose, and I want them to, through their will, feel inside like they're participating in it. So when I'm doing something dangerous, they can feel the sweat on their hands and they're feeling tense in their body because the mirror neurons in their head is it's making them participate in what it is that although I am doing it, they're also part of it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I've seen some of your YouTube videos. There's one where you talk about the difference between the circus and the carnival, and you do it with a spoon, you know. And you can see the you can just feel the turn in the audience, like, oh, he just stuck that up his nose. Like, we're in it now, you know, we're really in it. And there's another one, I think you had a coat hanger as a sword, and you and maybe there's a banana involved or something. But you could watch the audience like who is this guy? And you could see them slowly get into that moment that I've seen many times behind the counter, you know, of like, oh, we're here now, we're now, we're in it now, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Um interesting that you're talking about the banana, and uh I I because I say that to say that the coatanger is a sword after it's been taken off me by the TSA or import security. And so now we're in there, and then I chop the banana, I just slap the banana with the thing, and it's you with the drink, where it's like yeah, I'm saying I'm chopping the banana, and I'm going, oh well, it's and I'm going like now, and and you don't believe, you don't see it, and you don't see it, but it's like uh, but uh and I I then get them to chant that they want to believe and all this sort of stuff. And I open the banana and I'm going, because it was chopped, where it matters most, it was true where it matters most on the inside. And then I unpeel the banana, and it turns out it's this oldest magic trick in every book when you were a child, where you take a take a little needle and you cook the banana, so you cut it out, so now it's already sliced on the inside, and yeah, and uh and at that point it's like the silliness that I have talked on. All of a sudden, there is a kind of physical proof that they see with their own eyes, you're just seeing his believing and all that. So now you go, Oh, actually, it did work, and it's like and that's like with a drink with you, and you tell them to to blow the bubbles to to mix the drink. It's not finished until you do. It's both real, but uh and but it's got an imaginary level to it. And yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And and almost everybody, I'll watch them even after they they're blowing their bubbles, and then they kind of walk around and I'll see them out of the corner of my eye. Almost everybody flips their straw back over.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's even when no one's watching.
SPEAKER_03:I just love it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that is that's just so great.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that really is great indeed. And I'm already looking forward to you uh listening to the second part of this conversation. It really made what I have been talking about in 30 episodes on showmanship and play really come alive for me, having uh such a springing and lovely conversation with another fellow serious play enthusiast. Um and as always, I have forgotten to before this uh episode starts, to tell people to click like and subscribe and to follow me on uh Instagram on The Way of the Showman. But uh, as you see, an email just arrived uh from Clay Hillman on thewayofthshowman at gmail.com, and that's how we ended up on the podcast, and that's how a another beautiful friendship has arrived. So uh why don't you uh send me an email? Tell me something you wanted to hear about, me talk about, or any topics that you think might be interesting for the way of the showman to uh ponder. So uh yeah, it works. It works. I would love to hear from you. I'd love to hear from more of you, and I'd love for you to um yeah, subscribe, tell your friends, all that sort of stuff. Oh, I say this at the end and I forget to say it in the beginning. But anyway, until next time, take care of yourself and those you love, and I hope to see you along the way.