A Sardine Street Box of Tricks - Reviews
John Davies
"Why Sardine Street in the title of A Sardine Street Box of Tricks? After all, Phil Smith and Simon Persighetti's book describes and discusses a series of walks, interventions, experiments, and other myth-making merriment, on Exeter's Queen Street. So why sardine? Because, they tell us, sardines were depicted on models or banners in mock funeral processions to mark the last day of Carnival (as in Goya's painting The Burial of the Sardine). 'Carrying [the symbol of a sardine on a pole] was a mark of a promise to ourselves to attend to (and tend) the smallest and seemingly most insignificant things of the street.'
They took a year doing it, and the book is a terrific resource for anyone wanting to attempt something similar on their own street, wherever that may be: it is 'a handbook for making a one street 'mis-guided tour'. Identifying your significant street, mounting your walk, and collecting your own relics.' It complements rather than supercedes their earlier Mis-Guides and is especially helpful for its detailed explanations which accompany each step of the methods described along the way. Read the full review =>
Ultraculture:
"Authors Phil Smith and Simon Persighetti (who go by “Crab Man” and “Signpost”) have offered us a new way to engage our cities (or villages, or even pig trails) in A Sardine Street Box of Tricks—this is a “mis-guided” book about how and why to funk up tours; it’s about how to be a tour guide-cum-magician by digging deep into local symbolism and history and remixing it with performance, illusion and absurdity—a discipline known to its adherents as psychogeography." - See the full review at: ultraculture.org
Robert Daniels on Unbound
“This book was the template for our 30 days to Edinburgh project. A perfectly simple and frank account of working with/in “the street”. Phil Smith writes in such a way that makes acute, obtuse theory seem completely easy to understand. This book breaks things down for the maker in clearly understood ways, weaving anecdote, and personal experience with argument and critical insight. A writer that knows what he’s on about not because he’s read all the books, but because he’s got the bloody t-shirt.”
"Why Sardine Street in the title of A Sardine Street Box of Tricks? After all, Phil Smith and Simon Persighetti's book describes and discusses a series of walks, interventions, experiments, and other myth-making merriment, on Exeter's Queen Street. So why sardine? Because, they tell us, sardines were depicted on models or banners in mock funeral processions to mark the last day of Carnival (as in Goya's painting The Burial of the Sardine). 'Carrying [the symbol of a sardine on a pole] was a mark of a promise to ourselves to attend to (and tend) the smallest and seemingly most insignificant things of the street.'
They took a year doing it, and the book is a terrific resource for anyone wanting to attempt something similar on their own street, wherever that may be: it is 'a handbook for making a one street 'mis-guided tour'. Identifying your significant street, mounting your walk, and collecting your own relics.' It complements rather than supercedes their earlier Mis-Guides and is especially helpful for its detailed explanations which accompany each step of the methods described along the way. Read the full review =>
Ultraculture:
"Authors Phil Smith and Simon Persighetti (who go by “Crab Man” and “Signpost”) have offered us a new way to engage our cities (or villages, or even pig trails) in A Sardine Street Box of Tricks—this is a “mis-guided” book about how and why to funk up tours; it’s about how to be a tour guide-cum-magician by digging deep into local symbolism and history and remixing it with performance, illusion and absurdity—a discipline known to its adherents as psychogeography." - See the full review at: ultraculture.org
Robert Daniels on Unbound
“This book was the template for our 30 days to Edinburgh project. A perfectly simple and frank account of working with/in “the street”. Phil Smith writes in such a way that makes acute, obtuse theory seem completely easy to understand. This book breaks things down for the maker in clearly understood ways, weaving anecdote, and personal experience with argument and critical insight. A writer that knows what he’s on about not because he’s read all the books, but because he’s got the bloody t-shirt.”