FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

RODERICK RUSSELL, SWORD SWALLOWER
Charles Wood Theater
Glens Falls, NY
August 17th, 2009

TICKETS AVAILABLE ONLINE:
Wood Tickets (Roderick Russell, Sword Swallower)

Roderick Russell brings unusual entertainment to upstate New York.

One of only 50 living sword swallowers in the entire world, Roderick Russell has been described as strangely sophisticated, successfully blending suggestion and psychology with his own personal mind-over-body techniques to present a show that bravely pushes the limits of the possible - both physically and mentally.

Presenting the most dangerous and bizarre feats with wit, charm and style, Roderick also deftly navigates deep into the minds of the audience to create the most personal and profound type of theater experience. Call him a sword swallower. Call him a mind reader. ABC News calls him a “rare find.”

Absolutely thrilled that Charles Platt posted two cryonics-related items to Boing Boing during his stint as guest blogger (haven’t seen Mr. Platt since that dark, secret meeting of death aficionados in Las Vegas back back in ‘97 - what a strange and delightful time that was). Disappointed, though, that discussion of it amongst the Boing Boing crowd has been characterized by “ill-informed knee jerk reactions and negativity” - as one reader commented. Definitely not, as another reader mentioned, the same crowd as the original Boing Boing print ‘zine, the early years of Wired, Mondo 2000 or Extropy.

Alcor Foundation, the larger of two companies that maintain people in cryopreservation, stores cryopreserved bodies, heads, and pets in beautifully made stainless-steel cylinders known as dewars. These are vacuum-insulated (like giant thermos flasks) to minimize the boiloff of liquid nitrogen. …

Link to full Boing Boing article…

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Ripley’s Believe It Or Not featured performer and Guinness World Record holding sword swallower Roderick Russell is coming to Maine to perform two unique, two entirely different shows in February, and you have two chances to catch him!

On Friday, February 6th, the Winthrop Performing Arts Center plays host to the show that National Public Radio calls “not only the oddest event of the month, but probably the weirdest of the rest of the year.” Experience the sword swallowing, bizarre mind reading, fire eating and escape that has launched this show into the national spotlight. Not circus, not sideshow, but definitely strange, sophisticated and powerful!

Then, on Saturday the 7th, Roderick will be performing his laugh-out-loud stage hypnosis show at the Oddfellow Theater in Buckfield, ME. Utilizing his training in clinical hypnotherapy, Roderick induces a group of willing volunteers from the audience into a surreal hypnotic state, then takes them on a comedic journey into their psyches that will have you laughing so hard your face will hurt. Watch as the participants believe they’ve lost certain body parts, think that they are world champion dancers and can’t remember their own first name!

I’ll be coming to Maine in February of ‘09 for a series of shows at the Winthrop Performing Arts Center and the Oddfellow Theater (Turner, ME) and I need your help!

If you’re a fan of the hypnosis show, the sword swallowing show, or want to see either for the first time, and you want to receive free signed posters and a free ticket to the show of your choice, now is your chance!

I am looking for dedicated fans in Maine who want to help promote the show throughout the months of January and into the first week of February by plastering posters all over town, spreading the word by telling everyone they know and otherwise dragging all of their friends, family, extended family and strangers out to the shows. I want to pack the house at both venues – the more people, the better the energy, the more fantastic the show – and the best way to do that is to get the word out by good ol’ fashioned grassroots marketing.

Jeffrey J. Kripal, professor and chair of religious studies at Rice University, gives a delightful little treatment of Aldous Huxley in the December, 12th 2008 edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education. More interestingly, he states that “a kind of Huxley renaissance is under way” in response to the current political and religious climate.

What do neural Buddhists, individualist spiritualities, cultural wars over science and religion and creationism and evolution, a nature-hating technology, the violence of extreme religious belief, and potentially omniscient government surveillance all have in common? They were all core elements in the life and work of the literary prophet Aldous Huxley (1894-1963).

I think that we could all do with a little more Huxley in our lives.

Link to Brave New Worldview in The Chronicle.

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tags: aldous huxley, brave new world, creationism, evolution, huxley, mysticism, the chronicle

This weeks issue of Nature includes a commentary entitled Towards responsible use of cognitive-enhancing drugs by the healthy which discusses the “growing demand for cognitive enhancement” through the use of pharmaceuticals and outlines a strategy for intelligently, morally and safely incorporating smart drugs into modern society.

I am no stranger to nootropics. Though I can no longer claim to be an active user of cognitive-enhancing drugs – save for my morning caffeine – I have a long historical interest, both personal and professional, in the topic. Just last week in fact, while searching through some of my archives, I came across an old ‘zine from the 90’s – Collected Letters it was called – in which appeared a small article featuring a long list, the title of which was The Chemical Additives of Roderick Russell. This may strike those who know me as a teetotaler as odd. Never have I engaged in drug use in the tradition sense – no smoking, no drinking – but peak performance of the human brain has always been a subject near and dear.

I’m extremely flattered to find that what was supposed to be a mere sidebar appearance in this month’s issue of Hartford Magazine has in fact blossomed into a full two-page spread, complete with a stunning photograph by Eric Tetreault!

The article – titled Performer Roderick Russell knows how to attract attention - is a question and answer format interview and, though there were some liberties taken in transcribing the very long phone conversation – necessitated by space no doubt – the overall fidelity is quite good and the article does indeed represent me well. Many thanks go to the author, Mara Dresner, for not only doing such a great job, but for allowing me to take up so much space in the magazine!

I love it when people send me messages letting me know of the places that they’ve seen me. It’s endlessly flattering and, as I often don’t know myself where my image will be splashed, exciting and humorous to discover all the new places that I’ve been spotted. So, in the interest of shameless self-promotion, I’m writing to tell you about the latest place I’ve been seen…:

On a billboard!

The last fun sighting affiliated with Magic Hat was in a storefront window in Manhattan, spotted, photographed and sent along by Bethany Boles. This billboard – also for Magic Hat – was spotted in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Quite odd, as I am currently sitting in Burlington, VT, home of Magic Hat, though I actually live not too far from Scranton! Love the coincidences…

Any more sightings? Ads, television appearances, magazines… Send them along!

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It’s now the last week of August and here I sit, in one of my favorite cities (and old home town), Burlington, VT sipping coffee in my favorite cafe, reflecting on the whirlwind tour of shows that was summer, 2008. There’s technically only one week left in the summer touring season and I have only a few shows left in the Northeast before I make my way back to Pennsylvania.

At this point in the year I’d normally be eagerly looking forward to a couple weeks of downtime following Labor Day, but it’s not to happen this year. My usual time off the road has quickly booked up and, between September and October alone, I’m looking at a run of 49+ shows. No rest for the weary I suppose – or is that the wicked?

How can you tell the true geeks from the faux geeks? The diehards get signs of their geekiness inked into their skin.

This is a picture of a very fresh (day of!) tattoo of a flaming D20 (twenty-sided die, for all you non-dorks) sported by my brother, Chris McCarthy.

Chris decided to get his first tattoo on the occasion of his 18th birthday. This one should attract all the ladies as he heads off to college in the fall. ;)

Here’s to all the geeks willing to wear their pride on their arm! Go Chris!

I still say that it makes him critically flaming.

Standing in a knitting shop in upstate NY - don’t ask - studying the walls, I spotted this label from afar on an air heating unit. Trent Reznor being one of my favorite musical artists, I was naturally compelled to take a photo.

What I didn’t anticipate seeing were the words “Mercer, Pennsylvania” on the label. You see, that’s precisely where Trent is from, and I’m led to believe that this must be the family business!

Delighted to discover that it wasn’t just a random appearance of the name as I first suspected but is instead “the” Reznor name.

-Roderick
-
Sent from the road via Wireless Blackberry
www.roderickrussell.com

tags: mercer, nin, nine inch nails, reznor, trent reznor

Having decided that I needed a decent moblogging solution for my self-hosted WordPress blog, I recently ran tests of several options open to me and my setup.

My needs were simple. While on the road I’m likely to post primarily photos and video with short bits of accompanying text commentary. No need for elaborate layouts, minimal-to-no links included and text commentary is – even with my legendary loquaciousness – usually no more than a few short paragraphs.

Preferring maximum control and self-contained systems, my first choice was of course to keep whichever solution I implemented as close to the core of WordPress as is possible, so naturally I investigated the WordPress-native “Post via E-Mail” solution. Unfortunately the system is, at least at the time of this writing, not handling images terribly well, though passing text through my phone into the system is working flawlessly. Alas, it was really the combination of photos, videos and text that I was interested in, so at this time the WordPress-native solution is not for me.

Just a quick note to readers that in order to support blog submissions from my BlackBerry, I’ve finally upgraded to the latest release of WordPress. The last version was accepting my posts but not posting the entire content. At the recommendation of other users, I’ve upgraded (about time, really) and all works flawlessly.

I should make a quick note about two plugins.

As submissions from my phone while I’m on the road tend to be more whimsical and consist often of nothing more than a photo, I needed a good way to handle media attachments to WordPress via email. Alas, the built-in support is a bit finicky.

Thankfully I was able to locate and install the PostMaster plug-in (http://blog.xforward.com/?page_id=65). So far it’s working perfectly and invisibly and I can recommend it.

Not the best photo quality due to reflection, but the humor isn’t lost…
Such sophisticated humor…

tags: construction signs, humor, road signs, signs