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Month: May 2014

Robot TED Talk Will Make You Believe in Magic..

Robot TED Talk Will Make You Believe in Magic..

  By Lance Ulanoff for Mashable..

Magician’s assistants may soon be out of work. Robots are not only ready to take their place, but they’re doing it live and on a TED stage.

After months of development, training and practice, self-styled “techno illusionist” Marco Tempest took a Baxter robot, renamed him EDI (pronounced “Eddie”) and put him on stage doing magic tricks at the recent TED2014 conference in Vancouver.

Tempest’s six-minute TED talk, seen below, is a testament to what’s possible with modern robots. As he told Mashable last July, “It’s time for magicians and technologists to collaborate.”

Read more and watch the video

Blackmail, sabotage alleged by Branson magician..

Blackmail, sabotage alleged by Branson magician..

This is the continuation of a story that was a world exclusive for MAGIC NEWS  ( HERE )  By Mary Moloney for KSPR 33

Stunning stunts, tamed tigers, and illusions are at the heart of the Kirby VanBurch Show in Branson. For more than two-decades, the show has dazzled audiences in Branson.

“I have more awards than any other magician, certainly in Branson and probably in the world,” said VanBurch as he sat in his living room.

Golden statutes sit in a cabinet. As VanBurch explained, the Merlin Award is “to a magician like an Oscar is an actor to the movies.”

He has five.

“It’s a pretty cool award,” he said grinning.

It’s not the awards that have people talking. Instead, it’s a lawsuit, allegations of animal abuse, and the absence of Kirby VanBurch on a Branson stage.

“It can all end with a stroke of a pen,” he said solemnly.

To read about the animal abuse allegations, click here.

VanBurch claims his troubles started when he performed at the Music City Center Theater. During his shows, popular tricks that were staples in his act, stopped working.

“People had been sabotaging our props,” said VanBurch…

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Ricky Jay, Buying Books and Telling Secrets..

Ricky Jay, Buying Books and Telling Secrets..

By John Jurgensen for the Wall Street Journal.. 

As one of the world’s most respected sleight-of-hand artists, Ricky Jay has amassed a peer group of top magicians and cardsharps, and a stable of famous pals, from Bob Dylan to David Mamet. These days, however, he probably spends more time hanging out with book dealers, he says. “I like them. They live by their wits and their knowledge.”

They also live off their earnings from insatiable collectors like him. At the New York Antiquarian Book Fair, held recently in the cavernous Park Avenue Armory, he wandered the booths with some new acquisitions in hand, two books about hand shadows, and greeted many dealers by first name.

One seller asked his advice about a book whose blank pages reveal images when you blow on them, a specialty of Mr. Jay’s…

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The secret of magic is not a secret..

The secret of magic is not a secret..

Jon Carroll for SFGate….

My friend Reed Kirk Rahlmann is an actor, a street performer, a writer, a tour guide and a magician. We have lunch together occasionally, and we often talk about magic. He does it; I watch it; we have a lot in common.

He doesn’t tell me the secrets of the tricks he does onstage, but he will talk enthusiastically and well about magic in general. I really don’t know how the tricks are done (save for a few gimmicks I’ve learned over the years), but I do appreciate hearing about them from an expert.

I suppose I could have learned some magic secrets. I once bought a rubber thumb, a slightly larger version designed to fit over a real thumb. Nobody looks at thumbs, I was told. I could stuff some scarves (sold separately) into the thumb and then appear to draw them magically from my hand.

I couldn’t do it.   …..  Read More