Everybody Loves Lance – Star Returns to LouisvilleInside MagicMagic News Updated Daily for the Professional Magician

Lance Burton Photo

The
Louisville Herald-Leader’s Culture Writer, Jamie Gumbrecht wrote a
wonderful piece about Lance Burton and his recent return to his old
Kentucky home.

Mr. Burton was back in town to perform in Magic Under the Stars, a benefit for the Louisville Magic Club and a treasured, historic theater.

The question posed to Mr. Burton is one we could all contemplate:

Lance
Burton’s Las Vegas magic show includes 28 people, audience
participants, animals, pyrotechnics and a 1,200-seat theater at the
Monte Carlo Resort and Casino. But what does a magician really need?

Mr.
Burton tells the reporter all magic “is based on the same principles,
but on different scales, whether I’m making a car disappear or doing a
card trick.”

Mr. Burton points out he was still performing magic
when he occupied “a magician’s entry-level job” performing birthday
parties and learning from other magicians in Ring 198, Lexington’s
Thoroughbred Magic Guild.

Kentucky seems to be a breeding ground
for great magicians. In addition to Mr. Burton and Mac King, the
paper profiles Clarence Miller.

Miller, who
lives in Irvine, calls himself a mechanic, not a magician. He began
building wooden props to sell to local magicians in 1985. His first and
most popular invention — The Impossible Penetration, a revamped
“finger guillotine” — has been sold around the globe.

The tricks he
designs are legendary, and the quality is guaranteed. He signs every
one and promises to repair it for its lifetime. There are
metal-and-plastic copies of his walnut-and-cherry designs, but that’s
OK, says Miller, 76.

“Buying a trick is one thing,” he says. “But you’re really paying for the secret.”

And
the secret is what matters most, magicians say, right next to a trick
and an audience. Mr. Burton has all three of these components and, more
importantly, he is willing to share with his brothers and sisters in
the art.

Links o’ Plenty:

Read the full article in the Herald-Leader: http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/entertainment/12650054.htm

Check out Lance Burton’s Home Page: http://www.lanceburton.com

You can even read the Inside Magic review of Mr. Burton’s show posted on Mr. Burton’s web site (our brush with greatness) at: http://lanceburton.com/public/viewart.php?id=18

Mac King’s new and revamped website can be found at: http://www.mackingshow.com/index.htm

Clarence Miller’s Impossible Penetration at Viking Manufacturing: http://www.vikingmagiccompany.com/?nd=full&key=255