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  • I Lie for Money

  • Candid, Outrageous Stories from a Magician’s Misadventures
  • By: Steve Spill
  • Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
  • Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (6 ratings)

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I Lie for Money

By: Steve Spill
Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
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Summary

In this funny, irreverent, unique, eccentric memoir, magician Steve Spill reveals how he managed to survive decades inside a rarely profitable, sometimes maddening, but often deliciously rewarding offbeat showbiz profession - magic!

Spill tells of how his tailor grandfather sewed secret pockets in a magician's tuxedo back in 1910, which started his childhood dream to become a magician. This dream took Spill on a journey that started with him performing as a young boy at a "beauty on a budget" neighborhood house party to engagements in Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean, to today in Santa Monica, California, where he's been starring in his own shows since 1998 at Magicopolis, the theater he designed and built himself.

Being a magician has given Spill the opportunity to interact with the world's most famous and fascinating people. In his memoir Spill reveals the many unique encounters that his profession has led him to enjoy and endure: hosting Sting as his opening act one night, spending two days on camera with Joan Rivers, and selling tricks to Bob Dylan, as well as encounters with Adam Sandler, Stephen King, and other celebrities.

I Lie for Money is a literary magic show that captures the highs and lows of an extraordinary life that will delight and amaze you with wit and wickedness. This book should be an obligatory listen for anyone considering a creative career, and it serves as an inspiration to those who desire to craft an independent life.

©2015 Steve Spill/Magic Concepts, Inc (P)2015 Audible, Inc.
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    2 out of 5 stars

Entertaining, however... animal abuse isn't funny

Stellar performance again by Oliver Wyman.

The story itself has a major drawback. Animal abuse is not funny. Putting live hens on an electrified hot-plate-construction to make it appear as if you can magically control their movements, is not funny. Live worms thrown into the audience are not funny, etc. You get the idea. Most of these "anecdotes" are decades old and maybe at the time, sadly, nobody cared. There's this great thing called "hindsight" though, which can actually come in handy sometimes.

The second thing one should know: you will get hardly any insight into how the tricks work. Of course, magicians wouldn't want to give all their tricks away. I would have hoped for a bit more insight into well-known tricks, though, as I'm sure there are a lot of other books, video tutorials, etc. out there already explaining them all.

The latter is just a minor point. Without the animal-abuse-is-funny attitude, I would have given it 4 stars overall.

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