Posts.. – Page 310 – Magic Roadshow

A Note from Rick…

February 6, 2014 Rick Carruth

Thanks a million to all of you who have spent time on MAGIC NEWS during our first couple of months online. I have thoroughly enjoyed tracking down these stories, and I hope at least some of you have enjoyed reading them…

That said.. I want to stress that MAGIC NEWS doesn’t have an agenda. I am not thrilled with the ‘tone’ some of the magic related stories take, but that is the road chosen by the author and the publication itself – not Rick.. I simply pass on links to the stories that are being printed. To avoid being accused of editorializing, I don’t edit… I report.

If you wish to NOT see sordid little parts of your life splashed across the internet.. stay out of the news. Better yet, stay out of trouble and you’ll not see yourself IN the news. I wish I could offer better advice, but I have a feeling, in some cases at least, it would fall on deaf ears.

As Oscar Wilde famously said.. “ The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about…”

Unrelated thought… I’m assuming most of you have noticed the little red Hearts below each post. They are a polite way of indicating you liked that particular post. If you click it you’re not going to have to sign up for something or see it reposted on Facebook.. you are simply indicating to me that you found that article interesting. It only takes a moment and It WILL help establish a sense of direction for MAGIC NEWS…

Look for a wider assortment of magic-related posts in the coming weeks. There are going to be some BIG changes.. as soon as I figure out what they are…

G’day mates..

A Reality Show About Magicians…

February 5, 2014 Rick Carruth

Thanks to Angela Watercutter and WIRED.for the article…

.Rick Lax is a close-up magician; yes, for real. About a year and a half ago, he put together a homemade reality TV pilot called Wizard Wars, in which a bunch of Las Vegas illusionists faced off a la Chopped to see who could invent the best new trick. I interviewed Lax about it at the time, and during the conversation we joked that the ball was now in Syfy’s court. Obviously, that would probably never happen.

Obviously, we were wrong.

On March 4, Syfy will debut Wizard Wars in slightly different form: an hour-long special that pits magic-makers against each other in an attempt to win cash and bragging rights. (Turns out the idea of pairs of magicians battling each other and then going toe-to-toe with top magicians makes for pretty good TV.)

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Wranglers’ Billy Johnson: ‘I was assaulted’ by Las Vegas magician Seth Grabel..

February 5, 2014 Rick Carruth

As reported by the Kats Report and the Las Vegas Sun..

As Las Vegas magician Seth Grabel basks in the blush of his heavily publicized wedding at the Grammy Awards and Billy Johnson closes in on a new home for the Las Vegas Wranglers, a legal entanglement involving the two has surfaced.

Johnson, the Wranglers president, is involved in a civil case against Grabel, and at one point a 30-day temporary restraining order was issued against the Las Vegas-based magician..

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Tinker, tailor, soldier… illusionist? When the CIA tried its hand at magic..

February 4, 2014 Rick Carruth

By Tom Scocca for Boston.com ..

“The instant the performer sees the spectator take a cigarette, cigar, or pipe, he takes the packet of matches from his pocket, tears off one match, and holds packet and match ready to ignite the match,” the magician John Mulholland wrote in a manual in the 1950s. “He does these things openly because what he does can only be looked upon as a friendly and courteous gesture.”

Mulholland’s instructions were written not for stage magicians, but for the covert operatives of the CIA. At the height of the Cold War – in the era of nuclear missiles and submarines, amid the tangled cloak-and-dagger maneuverings of espionage and counterespionage – the agency was also secretly doing something else. It was trying to learn to do magic…

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