Name: Elwood Winslow Pierce
Title of Act: Mentalist
Description of Act:
I can read minds with 80% accuracy. Audience-selected playing cards are identified without the use of sleight-of-hand. I can bend spoons and other flatware using my mental power and have on occasion moved a chair across the floor when the moon is right. I can cause children to faint using my mind and by utilizing powerful hypnosis, I have made grown men strut and cluck like chickens. I can also cure colds, grippe, croup, the dropsy, trench-mouth, rickets and pemphigus with the laying of hands.
Other Talents: I am a disease enthusiast and spend much of my spare time gathering plants, minerals, precious liquids and chemicals used in the preparation of healing unctions and poultices.
Notes: Mr. Pierce is an intense individual with a rather prickly disposition, as is the way with most mentalists. I imagine their brains are a little more tender and edgy than ours, due to the extra activity going on inside, so I have never held a sour mood against those of the mentalist ilk. He correctly identified cards I plucked from a deck without apparent trickery, but was unable to move a chair or bend a butter knife, as the moon wasn't "right". Mr. Pierce bristled when I suggested that any mentalist act I might employ would need to be able to perform consistently on a daily basis, rather than every fortnight, as allowed by lunar permissions. I asked if he could guess my weight and he testily replied, "If you're thinking it..." So I thought my weight and his guess was eight pounds high. Not entirely convinced of his mentalist abilities, I have nonetheless offered Mr. Elwood a position as a part-time mentalist (every fortnight). The rest of his time will be spent acting as a doctor for the troupe, who are always smashing their fingers, rolling their ankles or coming down with the croup or some such. We can always use a good poultice or unction. This contracted has been extended on a six-month trial basis, as we enter our heavy travel season.
-Miller Hatsfield
Senior Roustabout and Hiring Manager
The Salty Peters Traveling Carnival, Roadshow and Burlesque Review
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