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‘Now You See Me 2’ Screening Evacuated: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know..

‘Now You See Me 2’ Screening Evacuated: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know..

The screening for Now You See Me 2 was cut short due to a security concern on Thursday at CinemaCon in Las Vegas. The theater was evacuated 10 minutes into the screening and attendees were asked to exit the theater at Caesars Las Vegas, according to Deadline..

The film is the sequel to the successful 2013 movie, Now You See Me, about four talented illusionists who pull off a massive bank heist. The new movie welcomes back Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Dave Franco, Woody Harrelson, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine. Also joining that cast are Lizzy Caplan and Daniel Radcliffe. Read more at…

http://heavy.com/entertainment/2016/04/now-you-see-me-2-screening-evacuated-cinemacon-las-vegas-security-suspicious-item-theater-lionsgate-movie/

The unbelievable story of Matthias Buchinger, 18th century polymath, magician and artist..

The unbelievable story of Matthias Buchinger, 18th century polymath, magician and artist..

Ricky Jay is one of the greatest sleight-of-hand artists in the world, which is to say that he deals in deception, misdirection and the seemingly impossible. His shuffles can leave aces congregating at the top or the bottom of the deck depending on his requirements, and he will even deal from the middle if needed. Once asked, in a New Yorker profile, if there are people who still play cards with him, he replied, “Sure. Silly people”, and plenty of his most honest skills are so astonishing that they still have a touch of artifice to them. For many years, the climax of a performance has seen Jay throwing playing cards with such force that they will penetrate the “thick, pachydermatous outer layer” of a watermelon – a fruit that he often prefixes with the term “his majesty”. It should not be too surprising, then, that having finished Jay’s latest book, a biography of the 18th century magician, musician and calligrapher Matthias Buchinger, I raced online to see if there was any truth in the tale I had just read.  Read more…

http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2016/04/unbelievable-story-matthias-buchinger-18th-century-polymath-magician-and

No sleight of hand: At 85, they’re still making magic together..

No sleight of hand: At 85, they’re still making magic together..

Three minutes of magic on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1967 changed Dick and Joanne Gustafson’s lives forever.

Both 85, they now tour suburban senior centers and school assemblies instead of the European night clubs of their heyday. But their flame burns as brightly as it did when they performed “Magic by Candlelight” on national TV nearly 50 years ago.

Dick Gustafson was a career research chemist at Rohm and Haas, doing magic as a hobby, when fate changed his focus from reality to illusion.

“I married a chemist, but I got a magician,” Joanne Gustafson said, smiling at her husband of 62 years in their cozy Horsham living room.

“She has said that for a million years,” he said. “Then she usually says, ‘Where did I go wrong?’ ”

Read more at –  http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20160405_No_sleight_of_hand__At_85__they_re_still_making_magic_together.html

What The Shrunken-Finger Illusion Reveals About the Brain

What The Shrunken-Finger Illusion Reveals About the Brain

There’s a popular and simple magic trick involving multiplying balls: The magician holds a ball, usually red, between her thumb and index finger. They flick their wrist and suddenly, a second ball appears between their index and middle fingers. They keep on flicking and balls keep on appearing..

The secret is simple: the first “ball” is really an empty hemispherical shell, with the second ball nesting inside it. When the magician flicks their wrist, they roll the second ball out of its shell. With a few flourishes, they can then load the third and fourth balls into the shell, before rolling them out in turn. Audience members automatically assume that the empty shell is a full sphere, because it’s indistinguishable from one when viewed from the front.

But there’s more to the trick than that, says Vebjørn Ekroll, a psychologist at the University of Leuven in Belgium. We deeply, strongly, resolutely perceive the shell as a sphere because our brains create a full representation of the ball. The hypothetical back half that we cannot see feels as real as the front half that we actually can.  Read more..

http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/04/what-the-shrunken-finger-illusion-reveals-about-the-brain/477288/