Next Monday, June 25 Penn & Teller: Fool Us returns The CW with a whole season of acts trying to sneak their secrets past the bad boys of magic. The official trailer for the new season is our lead off video… and the countdown to the official summer magic TV season begins!
A quick recap of the magic on America’s Got Talent last night: First, comedy “mentalist” Lioz Shem Tov did not impress all of the judges, but did garner three yes votes basically doing the old “David Copperfield” bit from Conan O’Brien’s early days at NBC (which frankly is probably older than that). Japanese, uh, I’ll call him a “comic magician” Wes-P did an interesting take on the ol’ table cloth trick which did not go over terribly well. You can see that here. Finally, and most importantly, there was a magician making a plethora of spongeballs appear who seemed to be voted on to the next round, but they did not show his whole act or even announce his name. If you can identify him, please let us know through the comments!
Masters Of Illusion returns to the air Friday, June 29 and The CW just released the first teaser commercial… that’s today’s lead off video! Penn & Teller: Fool Us returns next week.
The CBC Radio Network has a feature on McGill University PhD candidate Jay Olson, a former professional magician turned psychiatry student, who hopes to mix the lessons he learned as an entertainer with those learned getting his doctorate to help his patients.
Derren Brown’sMiracle is coming to Netflix June 22. That gives you a week to subscribe to Netflix or remember your ex’s password.
Michigan Tech has a story posted about PhD candidate in mechanical engineering Saeed Jafari Kang, who is using magic to improve his English communication skills.
If you are around New York, you might want to plan a trip to the New York Historical Society Museum. Their new exhibition Summer of Magic: Treasures of the David Copperfield Collection opens tomorrow. There are many special events connected with the display, which runs through August, including performances, lectures and an appearance by Mr. Copperfield.
Finally, if you need to add to your own magic history collection, do not forget the second part of the David Baldwin magic collection goes up for auction tomorrow at Potter and Potter. You can bid online if you are not around their Chicago gallery.
Today’s lead off video is incredibly serious. As reported above by Atlanta’s WXIA, a young boy in Cordelia, GA was severely burned after trying to recreate “a magic trick” he saw on YouTube. The video identified by the station as the inspiration for his attempt calls the stunt a “science magic trick” and is not from a magician but a science oriented YouTube page. Nevertheless, we think this is a perfect time to remind everyone to please be careful what you are posting on the Internet or are performing live for kids to see!
Speaking of Penn and Teller, The CW has finally put out a for the new season of Fool Us (it premieres on Monday, June 25); you can see the teaser on The CW’s YouTube page.
Congratulations to Derren Brown for his of the The Chase Award for Unique Theatrical Experience at 2018 Drama Desk Awards for his theater piece Secret.
Smoothini has announced there will be a web series to accompany Hip Hop Houdini, his new show on Fuse. There will be magic lessons and more footage of Smooth hustling out on the streets. The show kicks off on July 17; we will keep you updated on the web content.
Finally, since we have been covering the theater beat today, here’s a heads up to all kid performers: the new Sesame Street Live tour is titled Make Your Magic and centers around Elmo learning a little magic and, according to The Daily Journal site, the show features works by Jim Steinmeyer!
Week three of America’s Got Talent brings the third officially “leaked” video clip of an audition and the third magic related act. This time it is Lord Nil escaping from a weird 1984 thought police box of scorpions.
Is the extra attention magic is getting from AGT a good thing or a bad thing? The next night of auditions airs tomorrow on NBC.
Kanye West just celebrate a birthday and Lior Surchard swung by to entertain. You can catch pictures and some cell phone video over at Refinery29.
Finally, we mentioned Chatham, Ontario magician Marien Hopman was the victim of theft last week when a stash of props was taken from his glovebox. CBC has run another article on Marien and his plea to simply return his equipment, no questions asked. You can also listen to a CBC interview with Marien here. (And Marien, if you have a website, we can’t find it! Pass it along!)
The BBC is reporting Sheffield’s new mayor Magid Magid brought a magician in to his first council meeting. The mayor is already a bit of a celebrity, being the town’s youngest mayor, first Somali mayor and having already appeared on a British reality show. No word on who the magician was…
The Kearney Hub talks to magician Ron Milo ahead of his shows to support and promote reading at the local library. We usually don’t pass along library shows (because they might be the most common magic shows in the United States there are just too many… not because we don’t have total respect for the guys and gals trooping through America’s libraries) but Ron is kind of interesting because he is also a lawyer.
Finally, if you are around Bakersfield, CA Kenrick ICE McDonald is coming to town Monday night as part of a magical performance series at the Gaslight Melodrama curated by local magician Ron Saylor. Read more (and get the details) on Bakersfield.com.
