The Boring Conference

Discussions of new films, books, television shows, and media indirectly related to magic and magicians. For example, there may be a book on mnemonics or theatrical technique we should know or at least know about.
Richard Stokes
Posts: 237
Joined: September 11th, 2008, 8:18 pm

The Boring Conference

Postby Richard Stokes » March 23rd, 2015, 2:39 pm

I recently came across James Ward's blog 'I LIKE BORING THINGS'.
James has written a book "Adventures in Stationery- A Journey Through Your Pencil Case."

Every year James organises a Boring Conference in London:

"The Boring Conference is a one-day celebration of the mundane, the ordinary, the obvious and the overlooked – subjects often considered trivial and pointless, but when examined more closely reveal themselves to be deeply fascinating.
It was created in response to the cancellation of the 2010 Interesting Conference. It seemed like the obvious thing to do.
Previous speakers have included Jon Ronson, Robin Ince, Josie Long and Adam Curtis. People have talked about sneezing, toast, IBM tills, the sounds made by vending machines, the Shipping Forecast, barcodes, yellow lines, London shop fronts, the television programme Antiques Road Trip and the features of the Yamaha PSR-175 Portatune keyboard."

Well, the next Conference is May 9th, and I will definitely attend, if I can get hold of a ticket. They sell out fast.

Check out James' voyeuristic interest in modular buildings and security huts!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHSsKj1-geg
He also briefly looks at bizarre blindfold feats on German TV - e.g., a blindfolded teenager who can identify vinyl records by using his fingernail as a stylus...

James boldly covers Andy Warhol , Georges Perec, and the 1985 Argos catalogue:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZcXHsSSuOk

I would strongly recommend Andrew Male's analysis of Eric Clapton's Bookshelf :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFiYTs7EWsU

Give these clips a go. Set aside the 'extraordinary' and come to grips with the 'infra-ordinary'!

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