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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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Now his next trick: Will Emirati illusionist disappear? [video]

Now his next trick: Will Emirati illusionist disappear? [video]

The UAE’s best-known magician and illusionist Moein Al Bastaki has new tricks up his sleeve… But don’t get too close to him – he can and will read your mind.
 
Since he made the Burj Khalifa vanish and famous Arab celebrities fly, Moein has been busy working on new acts.
 
“I’m going to try this new one on you before anyone else, if that’s ok with you” he says.
 
The 34-year old Emirati hands me an empty glass jug and asks me to hold it mid-air inside another glass container, to demonstrate his latest trick.
 
The controversial performer, who left me spellbound after his latest trick, is definitely not a sorcerer, but convincing others is harder than it seems.

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Magician Paul Daniels and wife Debbie McGee on their marriage

Magician Paul Daniels and wife Debbie McGee on their marriage

By Rhik Samadder for the Observer..

We met thanks to the Ayatollah. Debbie was a ballerina, but had to escape his revolution. She managed to get out, leaving behind money, clothes, everything. She returned here and auditioned for Bernard Delfont, the huge theatrical group – it was a cattle market in those days. It probably still is.

I remember her sitting on a wall outside the rehearsal room, looking like the little mannequin drawing between the paragraphs of Playboymagazine. We got chatting. She had personality and life – and presence. She became a box jumper, as we call them. We dated a little, but she was far too young. I said: “Those nasty people called journalists will shred you, call you a gold-digger. Find someone your own age.”..

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