I recently performed at the San Francisco International Fringe Theater Festival. I presented my show, An Evening of Mental Mysteries and Physical Wonders.It was a great experience, the show sold out, and won a Best Of the Fringe award. I was honored to be a part of such an amazing festival.

I had the honor of performing at the Big Nerd Ranch. This is Leann Boucher, who was chief wrangler.

It was interesting to note that there were also Small Nerds and Medium Sized Nerds, along with the Big Nerds. I am assuming that the “Big” in “Big Nerd Ranch” referred to their inclusive attitude.

I recently had the honor and pleasure of entertaining at The Hall Winery for their partners dinner. This is me with the delightful Kathryn Hall.

I have the honor of returning to the Marsh Cabaret. 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley.

New demonstrations along with audience favorites. 6pm. Start your weekend with wonder.

Sebastian Boswell III mentalist.

Harvard maintains a brain bank where over 7,000 human brains are stored for research purposes.

They are only for looking, poking, and slicing. You may not taste them. Nor can you check one out to see if you like it better than the one you already have. You are stuck with the one currently in your head, so make the best of it.

I am often asked, “Are you a mentalist, or just a magician?” While the phrase “just a magician” is appropriate in any context, comparing a magician to a mentalist, especially a mentalist such as myself, is a poor analogy.  It is, as the title implies, the difference between a delicious ripe apple, and a piece of cheap wax fruit.

One is genuine and enhances the body and mind. The other is fake, and while attractive, just takes up space and gets squishy in the sun.

A mentalist is skilled in the art of mentalism, which takes years of discipline to focus the mind to such a vibration that it can communicate with other minds, and tune into the elusive waves of the past, present, and future that are in the air. A magician is skilled in buying nicknacks from a magic shop. That, and annoying rabbits,  misusing hats,  and doing unspeakable things to doves.

Not that magicians don’t have their place.  They can be an amusing diversion, like a shiny object to a chimp, or an iPad to nearly everyone. I have friends who are magicians. They make pleasant company,  as long as you speak slowly, use very common words,  and refrain from using common words over two syllables. In fact, the word “syllable” makes most magician’s eyes glaze over.

A mentalist, however, is skilled practitioner in a craft that demonstrates the power of the human mind, and does so in an entertaining manner. Granted, there charlatans who claim to be true mentalists, but who are merely magicians pretending to have highly developed mental powers, who are deceiving their audiences with false presentations of mentalism.

I am no such charlatan. I have a long and storied carrier as a mentalist, I can assure you, in asserting such a claim, I am either telling the truth, lying or insane. And I assure you I am not lying.

I, Sebastian Boswell III, mentalist and entertainer,  will be performing for 2 more shows at the Berkeley Marsh Happy Hour. 6pm on Friday 18th and Friday 25th.  2120 Allston Way.  No cover charge, and your weekend will be better for it.

Last week there was a full house for my show, and then some went next door to see Mr. Wavy Gravy. Here is a photo of Mr. Gravy, waving.

I have the honor of performing demonstrations mental miracles and physical wonders at the Marsh Berkeley, (most) every Friday night in December 2012 and every Friday night of January 2013.

No show December 28th.

All shows at 6pm. Full bar and Food! Come satisfy your thirst, appetite, and sense of wonder all at the same time.

Though not a children’s show, children are welcome as long as they are curious, intelligent, and acceptably precocious.

2120 Alston Way, Berkeley.

There is no better way to end or usher in the New Year.

http://themarsh.org/happy_hour.html

As a mentalist of no small reputation, my blog attracts spam like Nelson’s Column attracts pigeons.  They are usually summarily deleted, but this was worth saving:

A person necessarily lend a hand to make seriously articles I would state. This is the first time I frequented your website page and thus far? I surprised with the analysis you made to make this particular publish amazing. Fantastic process!

I agree: to make articles seriously a hand is lended necessarily.

And it was a fantastic process. The process of the mind and mentalism is always fantastic. Even when covered in Spam.

Being a mentalist is more than entertainment. I also have a deep seated interest in science. This documents a mind reading experiment I conducted on friend’s child. It was wildly unsuccessful. Not only were the readings unintelligible (mostly goo-goo and doo-doo and  its variations), having not considered that a toddler lacks a grasp of language, but the wires shorted out the whole building.