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Magic, not football, saved Jon Dorenbos…

Magic, not football, saved Jon Dorenbos…

By Mike Florio for NBC Sports..

You’ve probably heard of Jon Dorenbos (long snapper for the Philadelphia Eagles). But you probably don’t know his story.  You should.

At the age of 12, Jon’s father killed his mother.  Jon found comfort not in football, but magic.

“I would record these magic specials on TV,” he tells Bryant Gumbel of HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel.  “And then I could put the VCR in late at night, and I could watch the magic shows, and I could try and figure them out. I would go in my room for hours and hours and hours.  I would literally have a little flashlight.  And my sister and I shared a room.  And she’d fall asleep.  And I’d click this flashlight on.  And then all of a sudden I’d look over at the clock and it’s six in the morning and I gotta go to school at, like, 7:40… .  It was this place that I could go that nothing else around me mattered. It gave me a purpose…

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Manjul Bhargava and the magic of mathematics..

Manjul Bhargava and the magic of mathematics..

For a few years, I was the resident magician at my son’s birthday parties. That stopped when the kids realized I was repeating the same three tricks. (Funny how you can’t pull wool over the average four year-old’s eyes). Still, I always thought one of those three was a pretty good trick. You ask someone to memorize a card out of a pack, then without ever looking at the faces of the cards, you deal them into three piles, thrice. After the third time, still without looking, you pick out the memorized card. Except with jaded four year olds, it always sets off delighted gasps. What makes it work? No sleight of hand, but just simple mathematics. And that’s why I’m thrilled to find that one of the winners of the 2014 Fields Medal—the big prize in mathematics—teaches a variant of this trick in an entry-level mathematics course. In fact, it’s apparently a whole semester worth of magic: the course is called the Mathematics of Magic Tricks and Games. What a route to learning and loving mathematics.

Read more at: http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/HygMdK56KPYNUOBwDJNIsJ/Manjul-Bhargava-and-the-magic-of-mathematics.html?utm_source=copy

MAGIC MAKES FOR FIERCE COMPETITION ON ‘WIZARD WARS’

MAGIC MAKES FOR FIERCE COMPETITION ON ‘WIZARD WARS’

By Erin Ryan for Las Vegas Weekly

“You’re gonna see a puppy teleport,” Rick Lax says, too calmly. Maybe because he’s also talking about earthworm pickpockets and Spam cooking in someone’s bare hand. That’s a taste of the ferociously inventive magic on Syfy’s new competition show, Wizard Wars, the first of six episodes airing August 19. Similar to the chefs battling on Chopped, challengers on WW are surprised with items like mannequins, pirate costumes and mini-fridges, and they must devise a trick fast and perform it live for a chance to take on the “wizards” and win $10,000.

<em>Wizard Wars</em> creator and former <em>Weekly</em> writer Rick Lax, right, and Justin Flom, one of the show's resident wizards.
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‘Magician’s Land’ closes a trilogy that matures..

‘Magician’s Land’ closes a trilogy that matures..

By Henry C. Jackson for the Associated Press

Quentin Coldwater — a moody, man-child magician — is finally growing up. And just in time to save everything, mostly, that’s ever mattered to him.

“The Magician’s Land” is the final book in the three-book “Magicians” trilogy, a genre-busting adult fantasy series. The books follow Quentin and an ever-growing cast of magicians, magicians’ hangers-on, magical creatures, gods, bookkeepers, talking birds, knights, kings and queens and the like through their school days, their angst, their relationships, their magical quests and across their magical lands. And to outskirts of Newark Liberty International Airport…

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