Shepherd Siegel - Tricking Power into Performing Acts of Love: How Tricksters Through History Have Changed the World

Tricking Power into Performing Acts of Love

Tricking Power into Performing Acts of Love weaves together delightful stories of mischief from famous tricksters. Some of themlike Muhammed Alicast such a long shadow in history that their trickster nature was somehow obscured. Thanks go to Shepherd Siegel, who illuminates that and tells even more fascinating tales and timeless techniques we too can use to float like butterflies and sting like bees.

MIKE BONANNO
of The Yes Men

Tricking Power explores a buried historical current of people who use creativity and play to challenge authority and envision new possibilitiesthrough music, comedy, writing, visual arts and politics. Siegel traces their influences back to classic trickster stories and forward as they echo to the present. I dont know if these tales will help lead us out of harsh times, but heeding their lessons will definitely make the journey more fun.

PAUL LOEB
Author of Soul of a Citizen and The Impossible Will Take a Little While

Shep Siegel has written a brilliant book about the small minority of trickster people in the world. Tricking Power is for the vast majority who dont understand them and must if things are going to change for the better. Read this book!

ELLIOT WASHOR
Co-Founder of Big Picture Learning, Author of Leaving to Learn: How Out-of-School Learning Increases Student Engagement and Reduces DropoutRates and co-author of Get Real: Your Future Depends on It!

I was thinking of Shep as I took a stroll after dinner with my three-and-a-half year old daughter. She made up all these games to play with me. She can imagine new games forever. Usually, I dont have the time or patience for it, but we didnt really have to be anywhere, so I said why not. Our objective was simply moving along the sidewalk. First we raced. Then she started making up games whose logic I could not follow at all. Bend down. Jump. Raise one hand. Then grab something in one hand. Wave it around. Run down the street with both arms in the air. Then one arm. And so on. She could have done this for hours.

Dr. Siegel knows of what I speak. He knows play, he knows his tricks and tricksters. Profiling such provocateurs, posers and pugilists as Mae West, Lord Buckley, Muhammad Ali, Sun Ra and many more, Siegel shows their playful pranks and how their dances amuse, irritate and stimulate. And how they just might illuminate humanitys path forward. Keep moving, keep changing might be Siegels motto and of many of the artists he loves. At a time when too many people take themselves and their times too seriously, Siegel shows the benefits of treading lightly but skillfully, and with a grin.

ALEX MARSHALL
Author of How Cities Work and The Surprising Design of Market Economies

Siegel provides many outstanding examples of why tricksters appeal to our collective imagination, and none better than Muhammad Ali. Not only did Ali have speed, grace, strategy and intelligence as Siegel writeshe was a natural born prankster. When Muhammad Ali tricked George Foreman with an ingenious tactic, which he coined rope-a-dope, Ali not only conned Foreman, he conned the entire world. No one saw it coming - especially George Foreman. The Rumble in the Jungle, as Ali called the fight in Zaire, was a brilliant, unforgettable comeback victory. Siegels book explains how Alis disruptive tomfoolery and playfulness made him the Greatest and a legend loved the world over.

JOHN CRANE
Filmmaker, Executive Producer of The Official Make-A-Wish Story: Batkid Begins

Tricking Power tells stories rich with insight, humor, and warmth. Each poetic tale reveals and awakens a new appreciation for the purpose and power of Tricksters young and old. Siegels playful, creative force helps to reconstruct how we think about Tricksters and the way they contribute to advancing society to a higher state of being and functioning (and boy do we need that now!), ultimately to a happier and heathier, a more enjoyable and love-filled world. This is a provocative and lovely book!

WALTER F. DREW
Play Advocate and co-author of Self Active Play: Awakens Creativity, Empowers Self-discovery, Inspires Optimism

Shepherd Siegels Disruptive Play is a must read for anyone who thinks we need to build a movement that goes beyond challenging this or that politician to reorganize the direction our world is going. In a beautiful integration of scholarship and passionate advocacy, this former rock musician and engaged academic opens up to the reader the liberating role that irreverent and playful challenges have played in undermining oppressive social and cultural structures in history and today.

Siegel both defines and extolls what he means by disruptive play with stirring descriptions of the victories and defeats of tricksters in history. In a world where even childrens play is increasingly regimented and ultimately repressive, this exciting book allows the reader to recapture the joys of youthful free play and experience or re-experience those joyous moments of real community in the midst of serious political struggles and deadening cultural conformity. More importantly, it makes a compelling argument for integrating disruptive play in all of our political and cultural work and daily lives.

MIKE ROTKIN
UC Santa Cruz lecturer, former five-time Mayor of Santa Cruz. In the sixties, Rotkin was refused induction into the military, whod decided he posed a security threat to the US

SHEPHERD SIEGEL, PHD

TRICKING

POWER

INTO PERFORMING
ACTS OF LOVE

HOW TRICKSTER THROUGH HISTORY
HAVE CHANGED THE WORLD

NEW YORK

LONDONNASHVILLEMELBOURNEVANCOUVER

Tricking Power into Performing Acts of Love

How Tricksters Through History Have Changed the World

2022 Shepherd Siegel, PhD

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Lawrence Ferlinghetti: Photo by Brian Garrett, 1980. Used by permission

Anne Hathaway: PictureLux / The Hollywood Archive / Alamy Stock Photo