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David Copperfield uses magic to heal..

David Copperfield uses magic to heal..

By Mike Walter for CCTV America

This week, Full Frame’s host, Mike Walters, visited the home of world-famous illusionist, David Copperfield, to talk about his career as a performer and the success of Project Magic.Copperfield has made his name performing some of the most daring illusions—making the Statue of Liberty disappear, walking through the Great Wall of China, and even flying in a packed theatre.  He has been named the most commercially successful magician in history. His elaborate stage shows and dazzling television specials have grossed over four $4 billion—more than any solo entertainer in history.

While challenging our understanding of the impossible, Copperfield has also challenged the status quo through the work of his foundation, Project Magic. Over 30 years ago, Copperfield recognized a similarity between his magic tricks and the exercises used in physical therapy.  His magic tricks had helped him develop his coordination, communication, concentration, and dexterity—all similar goals of physical therapy..

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Magic’s ultimate local booster collects people and ‘toys’

Magic’s ultimate local booster collects people and ‘toys’

By MIKE WEATHERFORD
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

Gary Darwin’s collection of magic memorabilia fills his eight-room house, surrounding and distracting him as he speaks from the sofa that is just about the last outpost of actual habitation.

I’m there to talk about him, specifically his 50 years of presiding over a weekly magic club. But Darwin’s life is so wrapped up in other magicians — and the books, posters, magazines, props and you-name-it relating to them — the conversation frequently strays to another artifact, and/or the magician who has signed one: “Norm Nielsen, you ever heard of him? He went all around the world doing the floating violin. He’s as crazy as me. He collects posters.”

But Darwin’s ultimate collection may be all the people who stopped in over the years to attend one of his weekly gatherings in countless backrooms or bars around town.

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PENN JILLETTE AND “WIZARD WARS” MAGICIANS EXPLAIN HOW MAGIC WORKS AND WHY IT’S STILL RELEVANT

PENN JILLETTE AND “WIZARD WARS” MAGICIANS EXPLAIN HOW MAGIC WORKS AND WHY IT’S STILL RELEVANT

By Dan Solomon for Fast Company..

If you think about it for more than a few minutes, the fact that magic is still a popular form of entertainment in 2014 is kind of surprising. When the first magic theater opened in Paris in 1845, people had few opportunities to see the impossible. Right now, without leaving your chair, you can watch a lifelike giant lizard stomp the hell out of San Francisco; you can control your favorite football players on a photorealistic gridiron; you can send a message around the world in seconds flat. With all of these things in mind, the idea that magic is still relevant to people seems hard to imagine.

But magic is relevant. Top magicians still sell out theaters, Hollywood scores regular blockbusters with films about magicians, and–as evinced by shows like SyFy’s Wizard Wars and the CW’s Penn & Teller: Fool Us–the reality of an illusion crafted by sleight of hand and misdirection can catch our eyes even when that same screen could also be used to show big-time special effects.

No one knows magic–and how it stays relevant–like Penn Jillette, and he can trace the evolution of the form in recent years from David Copperfield (“he had a debonair quality that magicians jumped on”) to Doug Henning (“he created the kind of casual hippie magician”) to current stars like David Blaine and Criss Angel…

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