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AUDIENCES ARE EATING UP PIFF THE MAGIC DRAGON AT FLAMINGO..

AUDIENCES ARE EATING UP PIFF THE MAGIC DRAGON AT FLAMINGO..

You won’t see him frolic in the autumn mist. Not in a land called Honalee. Not anywhere. (Some mythical being immortalized in poem and song already cornered that shtick.) You might not even think he stands outs in a crowd—just another green (with bursts of red and gold), grumpy, scaly creature walking his Chihuahua on the Strip. And yet …

“There’s nothing women in Las Vegas love more than a magic dragon,” says John van der Put—Piff the Magic Dragon to you—as Angela Stabile, co-producer of his headliner gig at the Flamingo, can affirm. “He gets proposals all the time,” she says with a touch of amazement. Piff clarifies: “It’s the joy I exude.”

Perhaps it’s the joy of dyspepsia. At least onstage. Anyone who’s seen the London-born, dragon-costumed comedian/magician in Vegas venues, at tour stops and on America’s Got Talent—where he advanced to the season finale before being bumped from the competition—knows his personality is built on a foundation of dour, deadpan ’tude. He looks like he’d rather be anywhere else—and there’s nowhere else he wants to be.  Read more…

http://lasvegasmagazine.com/entertainment/2015/dec/11/piff-the-magic-dragon-flamingo-comedy/#/0

Sleight of Hand – Storytelling and impossible objects..

Sleight of Hand – Storytelling and impossible objects..

My Amtrak train ride was a trick. I avoided the smog swaddling cloth of the Pacific Coast highway, yet I stood before a vessel reminiscent of “James and the Giant Peach,” a tin can with the label peeled off. A gust of wind lifted my scarf and covered my eyes for a moment, giving me an uncanny sense of foreboding: I saw my name in a sea of fine print, invisible in the back corner of a bankrupt San Diego newspaper, a statistic of an Amtrak train crash. The next gust of Santa Ana winds would send the last paper copy into the sewer. As we boarded the train, not a single passenger on the platform had lifted their eyes from their cell phones.

There were no assigned seats. I must have looked terrified because a woman moved her giant handbag and beckoned me to take its place. My eyes darted between the woman and a man at a four-top in a top hat, shuffling cards like they were floating. He wore a lion ring on his right hand. When he looked up at me, I was met with cloudy blue eyes and tufts of blonde hair that were coming out from under his top hat.

“You can sit here if you’d like.” He placed the cards in a neat pile. “But I’m not playing with a full deck.”

Eric Stevens, magician, author and speaker introduced himself and said he was on his way to Los Angeles to visit The Magic Castle—a private clubhouse for magicians. He promptly delved into a card trick that seemed impossible. (As Stevens later explained, “If it were impossible, I couldn’t do it.”) Read more..

http://ciphermagazine.com/blog/?p=4226

Benedict Cumberbatch to Star in World War II Epic ‘The War Magician’..

Benedict Cumberbatch to Star in World War II Epic ‘The War Magician’..

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Benedict Cumberbatch is attached to star inThe War Magician, a World War II epic tale that Studio Canal is financing.

Storyscape Entertainment principals Bob Cooper and Richard Saperstein, who made the announcement on Tuesday, are producing the pic, which has Garry Whitta adapting the fact-based book by David Fisher. No director currently is on board the project.

Cumberbatch will portray British hero Jasper Maskelyne, the titular spellbinder whose clever illusions helped the Allied forces fight the Nazis during World War II.

According to the producers, Maskelyne put together a rag‐tag “dirty dozen” of accomplices dubbed “The Magic Gang” who used illusion tricks to hide strategic targets such as the Alexandria harbor near the Suez Canal, in the process concealing 150,000 men with 1,000 guns and tanks. The book says the illusions helped turn the tide of the war against General Rommel and the Germans in North Africa, leading up to the Battle of El Alamein. Read more.. (photo via Wikipedia)

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/benedict-cumberbatch-star-world-war-846899

The New Masters of Make-Believe..

The New Masters of Make-Believe..

The crystal ball has crashed to the floor and nothing can fix its brokenness. There is no cloud of purple smoke billowing out of pandals erected in carnivals where carousels, pinwheels and soothsayers assisted by parakeets are the description of entertainment. The turbaned man, wearing a new shade of gem on each other finger who sat caressing playing cards as if they were the forehead of a leopard, has unrobed himself and disappeared into the crowd. Those mirror mazes now stand unexplained and the dolls he pumped life into can be declared dead, more dead than they ever were. Magic is no longer country-silly and India isn’t in toe-curling awe of it. Last month, the documentary by Kolkata-based IT professional Amit Sahai, Fading Magic: The Story of Kolkata’s Magicians, won a Gold Award at the IFCOM Film Festival in Jakarta, Indonesia.  The movie tells the story of the West Bengal capital’s stage magicians whose livelihood no longer shines under spotlight.

The suspense on Kolkata’s streets wasn’t the work of a coloniser’s suspecting imagination, for here is where the father of Indian magic Pratul Chandra Sorcar practiced his craft. With his pencil-thin moustache combed into twirls over his face and cheeks, and eyes dolled up like that of a Kuchipudi dancer, he sawed some women in half and made others float in air. His contemporary K Lal was given the title of the World’s Fastest Magician (1968) by International Brotherhood of Magicians in the US. He made his subjects disappear into boxes and brought them back safely within theatrical seconds. Sahai’s film talks about 3,000 other magicians who regularly performed at the city’s Mahajati Sadan theatre.

As the past is sinking into the sea, a bright new tomorrow is rising out of it; only in matters of magic can two such realities share light in the golden hour. Read more…  http://www.newindianexpress.com/magazine/The-New-Masters-of-Make-Believe/2015/12/05/article3161040.ece1