Today while wandering through Soho to spy upon cute geeks buying iPhones I happened upon my favorite New York street performer/salesperson, Peeler Man. If you suspect that you might ever need a vegetable peeler, you should wait til you encounter him.

I call it street theater, because make no mistake, Peeler Man, whose name is actually Joe Ades, is a notch or two beyond QVC hosts when it comes to impassioned conviction about the amazing versatility of the Star vegetable peeler. An older, well-dressed gentleman with white hair, Ades can usually be seen on some busy sidewalk, crouched over plastic bins holding potatoes and carrots, bellowing in a British accent, a wad of bills clenched between latex-gloved, orange-stained fingertips. One’s first impression is that perhaps the guy has lost his mind, but then you stop and watch him do his thing and eventually, appreciate the entertainment value.

“NOW! I’LL SHOW YOU HOW IT WORKS! FIRST! YOU PEEL THE CARROT!” he shouts to a tentative-but-intrigued flock of tourists and shoppers standing only a few feet away. Peels pile up like magic beneath his fingers. “THEN! YOU SLICE THE CARROT!” he folds the paper-thin slices between his fingers, cuts some more, and easy as that, even, identical carrot shavings shoot from the peeler. He sells the Star peelers for $5 a pop, and says they’re made in Switzerland, and only available exclusively from him on the sidewalks of New York.

Apparently he was recently featured in Vanity Fair, and lives comfortably with his wife on the Upper West Side.

Watch the Peeler Man.

Joe Ades and the Star Vegetable Peeler, Soho, Union Square, Sixth Avenue near Rockefeller Center, and other random New York sidewalks