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Penn & Teller now play mentor

Penn & Teller now play mentor

By Mike Weatherford
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

The pinstriped business suits have gone from hipster-ironic to age-appropriate. But Penn & Teller still wear them well, as the onetime upstarts of magic become its gatekeepers.

The rebels who pumped fresh (stage) blood into a tired form in the ’80s are now a more direct version of magic’s quality police, playing the mentors on two current TV shows.

“Penn & Teller: Fool Us” is a British import now airing on The CW, in which less-famous magicians try to pull off a trick the duo can’t figure out. And this week, Syfy began airing “Wizard Wars,” in which the two judge magic’s version of a cooking contest, with young magicians developing new tricks from a list of common ingredients.

Both shows are among the ever-flowing books, movies, TV guest shots and punditry (for Penn Jillette) that made the duo’s Rio show more popular than ever. (Along with the new TV shows, Showtime still reruns their “Bullsh*t” every Thursday, and Jillette hosts “Camp Stew” on the Sportsman Channel.)

If everything about their career has been slightly out of kilter, there’s a cool irony to them doing peak business after 20 years in town.

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How An Industrial Designer Is Using Magic To Invent Amazing Objects

How An Industrial Designer Is Using Magic To Invent Amazing Objects

By Jill Comoletti for Business Insider

As a kid, Adrian Westaway loved two things: magic and making inventions. Now, as co-founder of a London-based design and invention studio called Special Projects, he has combined both of those hobbies into one fascinating career.

At Special Projects, Westaway has worked on all kinds of endeavours, from designing an interactive user manual for a smartphone to creating a physical calendar than can transform into a digital one when photographed. As a magician in the elite magical society the Magic Circle, he is able to bring his expertise into the field of design.

“Magicians are the real experts at designing experiences and hiding their technology, and that’s exactly what we have to do as designers,” Westaway said in an interview with Business Insider. “People don’t really talk about how much memory is in their iPhone — they talk about what they just did with it. That’s the important thing.”

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Adrien Brody Defies Death in ‘Houdini’

Adrien Brody Defies Death in ‘Houdini’

By Mark Peikert for Backstage..

Time is not kind to legerdemain. As the years pass, magicians who once wowed thousands fall by the wayside as technology relentlessly advances, rendering their sleights of hand obsolete. And then there’s Harry Houdini.

More than a century after his heyday, Houdini remains a household name where his rivals have disappeared. And to underscore his continued relevance, History premieres its two-part miniseries Sept. 1 and 2, directed by Uli Edel and starring Adrien Brody as the man who defied death and defined the American dream.

Coaxing the Oscar winner to star on a cable miniseries was surprisingly easy. “I’ve idolized this man from as early as I can remember,” Brody says. “My first love was magic. I, as a boy, was really infatuated by magic and the concept of illusion and the potential for real magic. And I think as I got a little older, I became a bit more cynical and I lost that feeling and I found it in acting—miraculously, because it is much more unpredictable.”

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Cheap Trick: Most Magicians Are Lazy Hacks..

Cheap Trick: Most Magicians Are Lazy Hacks..

  By Rick Lax for The Daily Beast..

There’s nothing wrong with recycling the tried-and-testeds of magic. Most magicians do. But it’s time to shock and delight audiences anew.

Ninety percent of magicians perform other magicians’ material. They don’t just take the tricks; they take the whole routines—the lines, the timing, the movement. Sometimes they steal proprietary illusions like Losander’s Floating Table or Piff the Magic Dragon’s Fireball Sneeze (which isn’t OK), but usually they just perform the classics. Classic tricks, classic patter, hack jokes.

That’s not the worst thing in the world. I love cover bands. Hell, I get pissed when cover bands try to slip one of their own songs in the mix. That’s when I use the restroom or grab that second drink. Popular songs are popular for a reason: They’re really good. (Or they’re performed by somebody you want to have sex with.)

Same thing with popular magic tricks. Not the parenthetical—you rarely want to bed the magician performing the trick—but the first part: Popular tricks are performed so often because they’re super-deceptive. That’s why your signed dollar invariably reappears inside a lemon. Why the salt shaker passes through the table. Why the cigarette ashes pass through your hand: They’re great tricks….

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