Las Vegas channel KABC’s coverage of the ongoing Copperfield trial and the decision by the David Copperfield legal team to explain how his vanishing audience illusion works.
Las Vegas channel KABC’s coverage of the ongoing Copperfield trial and the decision by the David Copperfield legal team to explain how his vanishing audience illusion works.
We promised you some Copperfield today, but you might not have been expecting this! Walter Zaney Blaney recently posted this video highlighting his trip to Copperfield’s magic museum to see the new exhibit dedicated to his amazing career!
Summer magic returns to The CW! Masters Of Illusion will kick off its newest season on Friday, June 30! Penn and Teller: Fool Us will follow a bit later with its new season kicking off on July 10.
David Ben is this month’s Genii cover boy so we decided to look for some of his clips on the ol’ YouTube. What we found was this video from a couple of months ago with him telling his “how I got started” story.
See more of David on his website.
The comment system and I are fighting a long term war. I seem to get updates anywhere from bi-weekly to quarterly… and I never get a notice of new comments! This came in through the comment system, though, and it seemed better to just post it. Posted in 2016, it is an interview with 2015 FISM winner Mario Lopez from the Italian magic site Prestigiazione.it. Their site is not in English, but this video is!
This is the official promo reel of Amber Lee Alberts, magician’s assistant. She posted it to her YouTube page a couple of months ago, but we just found it! You can find out more about Amber on her website.
Someone asked why we will post assistants’ promo reels but generally not magicians’ reels. Two reasons: assistants never get enough credit and magicians are creating promo reels to get hired by the public… assistants create them to get hired by magicians!
This is one of those rambling pieces that will hopefully make sense at the end… or at least explain the video. We’ll see.
I had a headlight lamp go out on my Jeep this week. My shopping options were limited and I chose Wal-Mart over the dealer for a dozen reasons (but mainly price). Now, I know that people think there are a million socially conscious reasons not to go to Wal-Mart but you know what? They sell the best gluten-free bread in the area and sometimes you need bread and a spark plug and dog food and you might as well go somewhere that let’s you check out the new superhero Lego sets and kung fu movie Blu-Rays too, you know? So my route to auto parts (thanks to a wide, zig-zag across the store) cut directly though the toys. And you know what they had? 50th Anniversary Star Trek USS Enterprise Hot Wheels. Ten minutes later, I was self-checking out with two ultra bright halogen headlight lamps and one die cast USS Enterprise. What I didn’t have was the long, thin size 20 Torx driver I needed… that was in my other house across the state. That’s another story though.
So later I was showing the Enterprise to a buddy, which fell into the why I prefer Star Trek over Star Wars. Short version: Star Wars is a story of destiny and basically being born special but Star Trek is an inspirational story. Gene Roddenberry gave us something to aspire to as people and as a people. And to me, the Enterprise and its groundbreaking design (seriously, it was all flying saucers and rocket ships 50 years ago when Star Trek broke out) is a great symbol of that inspiration. So all this has got me on a what inspires me jag… which is what I want to talk about for a second. What inspires your magic?
When I was working on linking rings a few years ago, I did not just watch the masters perform. What had inspired my decision to grab the rings was not seeing Dai Vernon or Jay Marshall or even some nameless performer’s virtuoso act. It was hoop dancing. The video above, by the way, is Tony Duncan winning the adult division at the 2011 Heard Museum Hoop Dance Championship. Give me an Indian taco (which I can’t even eat anymore and I really miss fry bread) and a cold RC and I can watch hoop dancing all day long. I can’t do it, but I love it and I wanted to bring some of the style and rhythm of the hoop dance to the linking rings. See, there are no trick rings in the hoop dance, but the body and hoops are used to make shapes even without linking and I always thought there was potential in that. I also liked the idea of adding some modern American Indian culture into my magic… after all, I’m urban, I’m partial blood, but I am still NDN!
And in thinking about some of the things that have gone into various acts over the years, I came back around to Wal-Mart. I want to do more, and more meaningful, kids’ shows and Wal-Mart is probably where I should be when I plan those out. Not just for the toy aisle but right now because it is back to school and if you are a kid, back to school is a big life event! And then I was thinking about my new Enterprise (it is awesome). I wonder if anyone is doing a Star Trek themed act? Is there an official Star Trek magician? I know McBride was on Next Gen but can I lobby somewhere to be the official magician of the United Federation of Planets? Think about everything Star Trek has to offer as a framework for effects: transporters, flying spaceships, phasers, multiplying tribbles… can I turn someone into a Klingon on stage?
All of a sudden, I have a whole bunch of stuff to work on… So what inspires your magic and have you revisited it lately? Inspiration doesn’t just strike once so go back to your sources every once and a while. See what happens. I’ll leave you to it… I have a complete Star Trek Original Series box set to get to and, in an actually and complete coincidence, it is sitting next to two different sized sets of linking rings. Makes me really wonder if I can turn someone into a Klingon onstage. Anybody know anything about latex casting? Is it durable enough to roll up and palm, pick a bald guy and then just slap that down over his forehead with a magician gesture? Call me.
Have a safe, but inspiring, weekend y’all. Live long and prosper.