James “The Amazing” Randi takes a fatal dose of homeopathic medicine in his TED talk from a few years back. Awesome. Thanks to Andrew Atienza for passing this along.
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James “The Amazing” Randi takes a fatal dose of homeopathic medicine in his TED talk from a few years back. Awesome. Thanks to Andrew Atienza for passing this along.
Jumpin’ Joe Hadsell at the Ellusionist blog put together a fun compilation of magic and science stories including digging up this 2003 clip of James Randi initiating the first card trick in space with the help of physicist Ed Lu.
Fun fact: Randi worked with iTricks publisher Andrew Mayne to come up with the trick.
Of course, this is all preamble for the main event at the end of the month when magic and science collide at the Magic Castle. Much more on that in the coming days…
“The Amazing” James Randi is gay. So he says on in his most recent Swift column on Randi.org.
Quoth the man himself…
From some seventy years of personal experience, I can tell you that there’s not much “gay” about being homosexual. For the first twenty years of my life, I had to live in the shadows, in a culture that was — at least outwardly — totally hostile to any hint of that variation of life-style. At no time did I choose to adopt any protective coloration, though; my cultivation of an abundant beard was not at all a deception, but part of my costume as a conjuror.
Gradually, the general attitude that I’d perceived around me began to change, and presently I find that there has emerged a distinctly healthy acceptance of different social styles of living — except, of course, in cultures that live in constant and abject fear of divine retribution for infractions found in the various Holy Books… In another two decades, I’m confident that young people will find themselves in a vastly improved atmosphere of acceptance.
You can hear Randi discuss his decision further on the For Good Reason podcast with James Randi Educational Foundation’s president D.J. Grothe.
And now… for no particular reason here is a 1956 picture of The Amazing James Randi as sent to us by John Houdi by way of the Italian blog MassimoPolidoro.com.
Skeptic kingpin and magician James Randi has taken issue with the use of unscientific devises to detect bombs in Iraq and other war zones.
“It’s a dummy, complete fraud and fake,” said Randi, who has pursued similar questionable bomb detectors, like the Quadro, made in the United States.
Randi said devices like the ADE 651 or GT200 are classic dowsing rods, which use an antenna that swings back and forth, allegedly pointing to where the explosives — or whatever the substance being detected — are supposedly located. The antenna responds to very slight movements of the human hand, making people think it’s being directed by the device, when in fact it is responding to their own movements.
Interesting stuff.
The Guest:
• Eric Ross
What does David Blaine’s street magic marathon in Times Square to benefit the Haitian earthquake relief do for his legacy? What are the pros and cons of taking a long-term gig? Is storytelling the most important element of magic? In our lifetime, will Houdini ever be less important than he is now?
- Trick Shop Magic Get $10 off The Dracula Book Test 2.0 if you buy now!
Magician, Escape Artist and King Skeptic James Randi describes his bout with intestinal cancer, his experience with chemotherapy and his recent completion of his treatment at the end of 2009. It is truly inspiring stuff.
We’ve mentioned here before, and will again now, that both the publisher and editor of iTricks have ties to the James Randi Educational Foundation and are proud to call themselves friends of the man himself. We can say with first hand experience that during his recovery, both were consistently shocked by how spry the man was during what is supposed to be such a taxing process.
He is a great man and thanks to the relentlessly self-improving miracle of modern medicine, he stands to continue that trend much longer.