Exploring the intersection of tradition and innovation, this work reconstructs a lost 1830s Welsh magical notebook from Denbighshire. Andrew Phillip Smith translates the writings of a cunning man, or dyn hysbys, who served his community through magical practices while also seeking new spells and techniques. The book highlights the cunning man's role in preserving ancient charms and adapting to changing magical landscapes, offering insight into the rich tapestry of Welsh folklore and magic.
Since 2010, when 'Mythogeography' was published, the thinking and practice surrounding psychogeography and mythogeography have moved on significantly. This is a 2018 upgrade for radical walkers, students and performers with an essay by Phil and photographs by John Schott taken when Phil was Artist-in-Residence at Carleton College, Northfield, MN.
This practical, accessible and far-reaching guide to making site-specific
theatre and performance emphasises the diversity of approaches to the
practice, and explores key principles of space and site.
The MK Myth is the first ever ‘walkable novel’. Set in Milton Keynes, UK it has created a new myth for the city and anyone can walk its route and enjoy its fictional adventure, either reading as they wander or in the comfort of their armchair. The novel seeks to respond to the generally accepted misrepresentation of MK as a soulless collection of roundabouts and reveals the ignored mysteries, wonders and tragedies of the city. With a fully-described route through the city, the reader can literally walk in the footsteps of the central character ‘K’, a young woman who works as a marketing rep in a local company, as she finds herself having to cross the city on foot and discovering a city within the city. A city she had always been so close to but never knew. Along the way she meets a vast array of local characters from Amazon delivery men and wheezy female tour guides to a sixteenth century alchemist and the Archangel Gabriel. She visits a huge array of places, from beautiful chapels to hidden wastelands, from suburban obelisks to splendid windmills.The plot of the novel concerns how attempts by ‘K’ to promote her new marketing program become sidetracked by a war in heaven and ‘K’ gets caught up in a battle between two motley groups of characters; but are they all parts of her own imagination? The resolution of her dilemmas and predicament is one that the reader plays a part in choosing.
"'Anywhere' is a vivid portrait of a small part of South Devon - including Dawlish, Teignmouth, Paignton, Goodrington, Babbacombe, Newton Abbot, Dartington, Plymouth, Exeter and their surroundings ... its subject is the place, the landscape, the buildings, the history and the people ..."--Back cover
This is the definitive guide to Counter-Tourism, except that Counter-Tourism has a low opinion of definitive guides. So it's more like an equivocal misguide. It includes dozens of detailed Counter-Tourism 'tactics' plus the thinking behind Counter-Tourism, its academic and philosophical background, and its roots in film, music and literature.
'I read this in one go! It captures beautifully the "pipework and poetry" of corporate leadership with careful analysis, wit and intelligent advice.' Dame Clara Furse DBE, Chief Executive, London Stock Exchange, 2001-9 'Full of wisdom and with touches of deep humour, a must-read for anyone who wants to learn more about what it takes to lead at the top.' Lynda Gratton, Professor of Management Practice, London Business School Good leaders walk a tightrope between doing and daring - often in the glare of the public spotlight. In Leadership in the Headlines, Andrew Hill, the award-winning Management Editor of the Financial Times, shares his insider insights into the who's and how's of effective leadership. Packed with practical lessons, this book divides the best of Andrew's wry and insightful columns into eight 'acts' of leadership, with new commentary enhancing each one. Whether you're new to Andrew Hill's columns or a loyal reader, you'll gain fresh perspectives on the tough job of leading and take away tips about how to refine your own management skills.
This is a book about developments in walking and walk-performance for enthusiasts, practitioners, students and academics. Phil Smith considers where things are at for walking (as art and as performance), psychogeography, and the use and abuse of public space.
In this Footbook, Phil Smith (Mytho, Crab Man) extends his critical account of the gentle walking arts to the predatory lurch of the living dead. A keen observer of the zombie mythos for the past 35 years, he draws on the multitude of plots, images and metaphors swarming from movies and comics to describe a groundbreaking way to have presence in everyday life. Invoking slowness, fragmentary consciousness, thickness and thingness, the author describes in strategic theory and a horde of tactics, how to walk from Night to Day and away from the old Dawn into a radical nothingness. Gorehounds will never see the zombie the same way again. Drawing examples from across the spectum of the living dead product, with plenty from its margins, Phil Smith celebrates and berates the zombie; then turns it into a meditation, a manifesto, a dance score and the herald of a social movement. Shambling around the three key principles of Interiority, Carnival and an End to Ends, the Footbook of Zombie Walking is a way back to a vital Life and an art of Living. It is the next step, beyond Mythogeography, to ending media predations, putting subjectivities back on the streets and coming to be present in everday life. The Footbook is a toolkit for anyone who wants to make their every gentle step or crawl an uprising against the apocalypse and a march to real life over the remains of a spectacle. 'When Humanity is fed up, then the living walk the Earth.'
Phil Smith - playwright, walk-performance artist and author uses his recent retracing of a literary walk round East Anglia to introduce a unique kind of 'hyper-sensitised' walking. His exemplary walk takes us beyond 'wandering around looking at stuff' and shows how every walk can be art, revolution and pilgrimage.
