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Month: August 2014

At 86, James Randi is still amazing

At 86, James Randi is still amazing

By Glenn Garvin for the Miami Herald

For a guy who has spent most of the past 40 years busting treacherous telepaths, spurious spoon-benders and fake faith-healers, James Randi can do some pretty impressive psychic tricks himself. When I visited his home in Plantation last week, he read my mind.

“Pick any two books off the shelves,” he said, waving at his library of 4,000 volumes on UFOs, witchcraft, the Kennedy assassination and pretty much any subject that lends itself to exploitation by grifters and wackos.

I arbitrarily chose a couple of books on flying saucers; Randi took one and I held onto the other. “I’m going to riffle through the pages of my book, and you tell me where to stop,” he told me. He slipped perhaps a fifth of the way through before I stopped him — on page 47, as he showed me…

Dynamo Denies Cheat Claims After Shard Stunt

Dynamo Denies Cheat Claims After Shard Stunt

Video and interview courtesy of SkyNews..

In an exclusive interview with Sky News Entertainment Week the TV magician Dynamo has denied using wires in his stunt where he apparently levitates above the Shard in London.

The 31-year-old trickster has been wowing crowds for years with incredible stunts such as walking on the Thames – but this week a picture showing support wires went viral and he was branded a “cheat” and a “fraud” by fans online.

However, Dynamo told Entertainment Week the criticism had gone over his head.

“I’m just really glad people are talking about magic,” he said. “The picture is only half the tale. When you watch the show you’ll see the whole story.

"The picture is from an earlier rehearsal where I had a safety cord because it was so windy … I went up higher than that and that wouldn’t have been possible with the wire method.

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For Adrien Brody, History’s Houdini Is a Dream Come True

For Adrien Brody, History’s Houdini Is a Dream Come True

Sadie Gennis for TV Guide

Adrien Brody might have already won an Oscar at 29 for his work in The Pianist, but for the actor, playing the legendary magician Harry Houdini for History’s latest miniseries was a real bucket list moment.

“He was a very heroic person to me as a boy,” Brody tells TVGuide.com. Much like the magician he idolized, Brody grew up in New York City the child of a Hungarian-Jewish mother and took up magic at an early age, performing at children’s birthday parties as The Amazing Adrien. “What he represented to me then was a real bravery and a fearlessness,” Brody says. “I think what magic represents is this ability to kind of defy the laws of nature.”

His love of magic soon transformed into a love of acting, solidifying Houdini as one of “the greatest influences” in Brody’s life and making Houdini a personal project for the star. “I spent a lifetime poring over magic books and loving magicians,” Brody says. “My mother’s a photographer and she’s photographed Penn and Teller at Houdini’s grave. I’ve visited his grave, it’s in my neighborhood. He’s been present somehow in my life.”

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Watch ‘Wizard Wars’ co-creator and Detroit area native Rick Lax perform 13 magic tricks

Watch ‘Wizard Wars’ co-creator and Detroit area native Rick Lax perform 13 magic tricks

Lee DeVito for Detroit’s Metro Times..

Rick Lax used to practice magic tricks at Caribou Coffee as part of Royal Oak’s little street performance scene. He moved to Las Vegas in what was supposed to be a short stint to work on a book about magic, but his stay has since extended to seven years, in which he successfully developed and pitched a new SyFy show called Wizard Wars, a reality TV competitionthat premiered last week.

“You can peek behind the curtain without fully lifting the curtain away. It’s a peek,” Lax tells us by phone. “Each episode, you will be let in on the creative process, but also in each episode, you will walk away fooled. You’re going to get a hint of the magician’s process, and that’s real — you’re going to learn the terms, and see the way the magicians think — but we’re never going to give so much away that you know 100 percent how the trick is done in the end.” Lax describes the show as like “Iron Chef for magicians,” with Penn and Teller serving as the show’s judges.

http://www.metrotimes.com/Blogs/archives/2014/08/27/watch-wizard-wars-co-creator-and-detroit-area-native-rick-lax-perform-13-magic-tricks