From the Earth to a Star: My Incredible Life by Seamus Burke
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I tracked this book down from a reference to it in [b:Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women|178148|Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women|Ricky Jay|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1312005285s/178148.jpg|172090]. I really enjoyed reading it and it caused me to see out this rare, privately printed memoir and I had inter-library loan it and wait for weeks. I thank Burke & Jay for making me so excited to track down a book again, something I haven't felt since Amazon.com, Google Books, etc. made such hunts to easy. So, I wanted to know the secrets of "enterology" - the trick of getting both into and out of locked trunks and sewn tissue bags. In the intro, Burke says he will not reveal, but will explain. After that there is a fascinating life of poverty, street singing for money, fighting for Achi Baba in 1915 during the World War I Gallipoli campaign, and penning songs for performers during the variety/vaudeville heyday before the rise of the revue forced him to discover "automatic drawings" (rather like exquisite corpses done from the middle out, they festoon the book) and the powers of enterology before finishing out a career as assistant to Gracie Fields. How was enterology done? Burke asserts it was a trance-like de-materialization and a mystery to him. Looking at the unconvincing photographs I wonder if this is an Irish tall tale repeated by Jay (maybe with a wink) and something that never happened, or didn't happen as described. Why did Burke skip over his own career as imaginative playwright? I am unable to find any evidence his enterology occurred outside such sources as himself and Jay....
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