Celebrating self-expression as a basic human right essential for the

healthy growth of youth, individuals and communities

COMMUNITY ARTS ADVOCATES, INC.

Stephen H. Baird, Founder and Executive Director

PO Box 300112, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130-0030

Email: info@communityartsadvocates.org

Introduction and Services

Links, Festivals and References

Artists Directory

Photo-Journalism Project

Performance Locations Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and the Americas

Historical References

Books and References

Fine Arts Paintings, Photographs and Films

Legal Court Citations

Model Regulations

Sidewalk Democracy: Regulation of Public Space

The Malling of America: The Selling of America's Public Parks and Streets

India's Street and Transit Music

Avenues of Self Expression

Code of Ethics

Amplification Ethics

Subway Transit Artists

Women Street Performers and Sexual Safety

Email List

Stephen Baird's Home Page

(Detailed site index at bottom of page)


Books and References

For a deeper look at the opportunities and challenges for street performers and buskers read:

Recommended Books and References

Sally Harrison-Pepper came to my office to conduct an interview while researching her book Drawing a Circle in the Square-Street Performing in New York's Washington Square Park

New Books


From award-winning blues scholar and musician Adam Gussow, a taut, sexy first novel about the summer busking scene in Europe and a pair of wild-hearted young men who make a pitch for fame and glory, finding a girl or two along the way.

Set in the late 1980s, Busker’s Holiday is the story of McKay Chernoff, a Columbia University grad student with a harmonica in his pocket and a blues band in his background.  Desolate and despairing after a disastrous romantic breakup, McKay decides to fly off to Paris and reinvent himself as a street performer.

What follows is an epic summer voyage into the busking life, propelled by the mad exploits of Billy Lee Grant, a fearless young guitar shredder whose Memphis-to-Mississippi pedigree and Dylanesque surrealism make him, when he explodes into view, precisely the partner McKay has been yearning for.

Burning like a latter-day Dean Moriarty, Bill goads McKay into a sun-drenched, all-night bender, stoked by wine, women, mushrooms, and trains, that careens down out of Avignon and across the French Riviera.  What happens next—in Florence, Solingen, Amsterdam, Paris—is a story of purgatory, redemption, and love regained.  Hope, in a word, as a modern troubadour returns from his wanderings, reborn.



Additional Books

Newspapers:

Below are some sample links to articles featuring Stepehn Baird's arts advocacy work. See the entire web site for additiona references.

MBTA Legal Battle November-December 2003 (See the MBTA Media Campaign section for expanded list of Television, Radio and Print coverage here)

 

Boston Legal Battle June 2004-June 2005 ... on

Click image for larger readable version

 

NOTE: This is the short reference list. It does not include the hundreds of articles written for newspapers and magazines. I am currently transferring my hand written card file list to a computer data base which will become available upon request. The first three books recommended here included some of these references I have researched and collected in their foot notes and appendixes. Most major city newspapers publish annual stories on street performances either in the spring or during other traditional street performance peak times (Key West and New Orleans in February). Local libraries can help find these references.

A UCLA Department of Urban Planning research book chapter summary on the use of public space can be found on this web site at: Sidewalk Democracy: Municipalities and the Regulation of Public Space

Many juggling, magic, mime, vaudeville organizations and shops have extensive book lists for reference and sale, such as http://www.dube.com/book/bookindex.html, http:// www.juggling.org, http:// www.magicians.org, http:// www.mimes.com


Street Arts and Buskers Advocates