Magic, Mirth, Mansions and MasonsInside MagicMagic News Updated Daily for the Professional Magician

Melissa Joan Hart

Just Don?t Show Me David Naked. People ask me all the time when magicians will break into the world of adult-rated video games. I used to tell them that not since Matt Hoffmann?s failed BMXXX, no magician would touch the genre. Well, slap me silly and call me a cab: David Copperfield has joined with Carmen Electra and Melissa Joan Hart as characters you can manipulate in a simulated version of The Playboy Mansion.

Read On . . .

Sometimes I joke around on the old pages of Inside Magic but as we say in the south (Southern Michigan), ?If I?m lying, I?m dying and my momma?s home crying.? I?m telling the truth. Check out the official Playboy Mansion website here.

I have nothing against David Copperfield (or Melissa Joan Hart) but I don?t think I want to spend hours simulating my decorating of and entertaining at The Playboy Mansion. Or at least I don?t want to pay close to $60.00 for the game. If you?re like me ? then you probably enjoy picking scabs to the point of bleeding (even if they are your own) or changing the part in your hair each hour to indicate the time like a sundial ? you?ll have no problem playing the game for free. If that describes you, you can download a trial version here.

Marc Salem

Marc Salem Starts Shocking Scene. Marc Salem continues his incredible tour of the great theaters; this time stopping at the Tricycle Theater in London. He has received great fanfare everywhere he?s ventured and it is not surprising that London would welcome him with open minds. He was careful to not tread upon the oxford wingtips of Derren Brown the psychic laureate of the U.K.

“I talk to the dead ? they just don’t answer me,” he explains, deadpan. “It’s a long-distance call and it’s so expensive.” In any case, “Derren’s a little dark, and I can’t do dark. My tongue is planted so firmly in my cheek.”

Mind Games has done well on both sides of the Atlantic, with a record-breaking run in Toronto and now a wonderful reception in London. Read the great…

Melissa Joan Hart

Read On . . .

Marc Salem

Mind Games has done well on both sides of the Atlantic, with a record-breaking run in Toronto and now a wonderful reception in London. Read the great review in the usually harsh Telegraph here. You can read the official London Theater (they say ?Theatre?) Guide listing here.

Check out Mr. Salem?s incredibly substantive website by clicking here. It treads the line perfectly by letting the lay public think they?re learning how to read the non-verbal signs to learn another?s intuition. You can find him here. We?re going to put him in the Inside Magic Links of Fame. If you have a link you think is worthy, click on the plaque to the left.

Masonic Magicians Memorialized. As an Irish Catholic, I was raised to be weary of Masons. I heard stories of how they threw my grandfather down a flight of stairs when they found he was Catholic (and an immigrant) or kept my other grandfather out of the executive rank of a major Midwestern bank. I?m not saying any of it is true, just explaining the incredible prejudice I have against Masons. They are ? at least to Irish Catholics ? evil incarnate doing ?the Devil?s bidding here on earth.?

Well, maybe I have to change my opinion or at least let go of some of my prejudice. I found a site that has a listing of great magicians who also were Masons. You can visit it here. But it lists: Kellar, Thurston, Houdini, Blackstone Sr., Dante, Carter, Chung Lee Soo, Okito and Carl Ballantine. Wow. Who?d a thunk it? The site even claims that Thurston used a Mason phrase as part of his show to sound both mysterious and to let the other Masons know that a brother-Mason was performing. Check out the site here.

I am starting to think that maybe all Mason?s aren?t evil. I can?t reconcile evil with these wonderful magicians. It is always good to grow. I?ve been looking for famous magicians that were members of the Knights of Columbus but haven?t found the site yet.