Browsed by
Tag: magician

For Artistic Criminal, Breaking Rules Is Key To ‘Creativity’..

For Artistic Criminal, Breaking Rules Is Key To ‘Creativity’..

Compiled by the NPR staff..

Philippe Petit says he hates books on creativity.

So his new book, Creativity: The Perfect Crime, isn’t a compilation of ideas from great philosophers or creators.

The wirewalker, magician, street performer and artist breaks that mold with a book full of sketches and personal dialogue that captures his personal creative process.

And because it’s so personal, he says, it will be more useful. “I’m not doing any rules. This is not a thesis on creativity. This is a kind of an outlaw confession,” he tells NPR’s Arun Rath.

The “Man on Wire” says he has broken rules and made his own path throughout his life — most notably on Aug. 7, 1974, when he walked on a thin cable between the towers of the World Trade Center in New York.

Read the article and Listen to the NPR broadcast  HERE

‘The Carbonaro Effect’: Michael Carbonaro on Going From Jay Leno’s Magic Clerk to Hosting His Own Magic Show..

‘The Carbonaro Effect’: Michael Carbonaro on Going From Jay Leno’s Magic Clerk to Hosting His Own Magic Show..

Very good interview by Robert Chan for Yahoo TV. 

Michael Carbonaro just wants to make your life a little more magical. In his new show, “The Carbonaro Effect,” the magician crafts elegant stunts so that people don’t even realize magic is happening. Imagine if David Copperfield were your grocery clerk. Heck, why imagine it?

The show is a modern, smarter take on “Candid Camera.” We talked with the actor/comedian/magician, who spent a season on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” before spinning off his Magic Clerk segment into this new show (in which he also plays bartenders, waiters, and office co-workers), about his influences, how to convince people a duck is not a duck, and why it’s so important for him to take the ego out of magic.’

Read more

All for the passion of cards..

All for the passion of cards..

By Elina Priyadarshini Nayak for The Times of India..

 Rahul Krishnan, a 22-year-old magician, has tried to break the Guinness book of world record for ‘Highest throw of a playing card’

Meet 22-year-old MBA student Rahul Krishnan, who’s a magician by profession and whose passion for cards prompted him to attempt a Guinness Book of World Record for ‘Highest throw of a playing card’. Although it sounds weird, Rahul has gone though it and is currently awaiting the results. “It’s been eight years and I have been performing magic shows in the city as well as in places like Goa, Mumbai, Vijayawada, etc. I was always obsessed with magic and used to watch American magician/ illusionist, David Blaine’s shows. I got attracted towards it and started developing my own tricks and mastered magic with cards and coins,”..

Read more

Hot Docs: James Randi, the original mythbuster..

Hot Docs: James Randi, the original mythbuster..

By Graham Slaughter for TheStar.com

A white-bearded man in a black cloak glides across the lawn. It’s a warm morning at the University of Toronto, and the dark figure moves past the castle-like buildings, measuring each step with a cane. A green feather peeks from his hat.

If you didn’t know better, you might mistake him for a wizard. But that’s the furthest from the truth.

For decades, James Randi, now 85, has been the world’s foremost debunker of anyone who claims supernatural powers — psychics, mystics, faith healers. Before that he was best known as a magician, having appeared on stages worldwide as The Amazing Randi. Some considered him the best escape artist since Harry Houdini…

Read more