Browsed by
Author: Rick Carruth

New-age magicians embrace tablets and smartphones…

New-age magicians embrace tablets and smartphones…

Gadgets tend to bring out the worst in Atul Patil. The Vakola-based magician pours milk over iPads, breaks new smartphones in two and makes apples and coins roll off from tablet PCs. His favourite trick has him flinging two phones in the air and watching jaws drop as one phone morphs into another midflight.

Warranty does not cover any of this yet curiously, every time he hurts a device, Patil gets richer. You could argue–as writer Arthur Clarke once did–that any advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

This is perhaps why magicians all over the world are feeling the pressure to up their game. Like sci-fi superheroes, they started by wiping off their lipstick and shedding their capes. Then they got rid of the hackneyed card tricks and gaudy special effects and embraced chrome screens and CGI.

Now, taking a cue from internationally renowned magicians such as US-based Marco Tempest, who choreographs elaborate card tricks through animation, and Germany’s Simon Pierro, who makes beer flow from Ipads, city-based magicians have also started introducing elements of technology in their endangered bag of tricks.  Read more..

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/New-age-magicians-embrace-tablets-and-smartphones/articleshow/51278809.cms

For Harry Houdini’s Wife, Love Was Not a Magic Trick..

For Harry Houdini’s Wife, Love Was Not a Magic Trick..

The epigraph of this novel, a fictionalized account of the love story between the escape artist Harry Houdini and his wife, Bess, is a quotation from W.B. Yeats: “The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” 

The Irish poet’s words serve as a warning of sorts: This is not a book for the rationalists among us, given to seeing magic merely as a trick of the mind, a sleight of hand or — as in Houdini’s case — the product of superb physical conditioning and long practice. “Mrs. Houdini” is instead a brief for the mysterious and the unknown, as well as the transcendent, death-defying power of romantic love. Victoria Kelly’s narrative skillfully bounces around in time, its form replicating the novel’s hypothesis about simultaneous dimensions of existence. The prose is involving but workmanlike, devoid of any high literary pretensions. Read more..

http://forward.com/culture/334803/for-harry-houdinis-wife-love-was-not-a-magic-trick/

‘Mrs. Houdini’
By Victoria Kelly
Atria Books, 320 pages, $26

Dynamo’s secrets revealed: Magician shows how YOU can ‘levitate’ in thin air, walk through a wall of water or even shrink your friends just by using a phone..

Dynamo’s secrets revealed: Magician shows how YOU can ‘levitate’ in thin air, walk through a wall of water or even shrink your friends just by using a phone..

Magician Dynamo has unveiled a series of amazing photos which show him apparently walking out of a wall of water, floating in thin air and even using a double decker bus as a skateboard.

Dynamo, whose real name is Steven Frayne, shot to stardom after his TV series Dynamo: Magician Impossible became a huge hit, with more than 30million viewers in the UK alone.

Now the illusionist, who is originally from Bradford, has revealed the secret behind illusions which he says anyone can shoot – with just the help of a smartphone and a few choice props. Read more….

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3482962/Dynamo-s-secrets-revealed-Magician-shows-levitate-air-walk-wall-water-shrink-friends-just-using-phone.html

Neil Patrick Harris’s Latest Trick: A Magic-Themed Immersive Theater Project

Neil Patrick Harris’s Latest Trick: A Magic-Themed Immersive Theater Project

Neil Patrick Harris is collaborating with the producers behind the immersive theater spectacle “Queen of the Night” on a new, magic-themed nightlife project.

One of those producers, Randy Weiner — whose production credits also include “Sleep No More” and “Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812″ — said in an interview that the currently untitled project with Mr. Harris’s Prediction Productions was in the works, with an opening aimed for the fall. (Mr. Harris will not be performing in the show.)

Mr. Harris has performed magic at a variety of venues, including the Magic Castle in Los Angeles, where he served as president of the board. Read more.

.http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/03/09/neil-patrick-harriss-latest-trick-a-magic-themed-immersive-theater-project/?_r=0