Month: March 2014

Magic Castle News, Magic of UK

Sebastian Walton – Young Magician in Age Only

Inside Magic Image of Sebastian Walton - MagicianSebastian Walton is the real deal.  We watched this young man perform in the Parlour of Prestidigitation at the world-famous Magic Castle and were blown away on many levels.

First of all, he is young.

Not “Young for the Castle” kind of young but younger.  Young as in “you cannot buy liquor or rent a car or legally join on-line dating services” kind of young.

He claims to be 18 and that is possible but what is unlikely is that he is that good with so little in the way of real life performing experience. He has won several of the Magic Circle’s young magician awards, performed on UK television and has been seen by royalty.  That is a lot to accomplish in a decade.  That is a lot to accomplish in a lifetime.  The closest we have come to being viewed by royalty involved a webcam with someone who said they were a royal or something like that.

How can someone just 18 years-of-age know how to handle a sophisticated magic audience in a foreign country with such skill?

Presumably he has never been booed off the stage by seven year-olds whilst (that’s UK talk for “while”) performing a show for free in a public library during a heat wave in coastal Florida all the while wondering if his borrowed dove is going to survive waiting its production in the big finale.  He has never tried to squeeze in one last performance of a home-made Zig-Zag before his once svelte female assistant goes into labor. We doubt he has ever herniated himself trying to blow-up balloon animals for a mall’s worth of demanding kids.

There is only one explanation for this phenomenon.  He must be talented beyond his years.

He began his routine with an extraordinary routine wherein any audience member called the name of a card and he caused it to rise from, shoot out of, escape or otherwise mysteriously appear from a freely-handled deck of cards.  It was something to see.  We were in the back row of the Parlor and were blown away by his presence and audience management abilities.

We were in the back row because this young man has followers who cued (UK talk for “got in line”) to get the prime.  Some of the fans were from his home country and were very polite and proper in their refusal to allow us to sit on their laps or lay across two of them.

But even from the cheap seats, we marveled at how he owned the room and he held them in his unblemished (by liver spots and excessive wrinkles seen on performers of our ancient demographic) palm with a charming confidence.

We were honored that he came downstairs to the Museum and caught part of act.  We wanted to stop our ramblings and messy sleights to introduce him to the room ala Ed Sullivan (a reference Mr. Walton will need to do the Google to learn) but were so self-conscious that we thought it best to remain focused on the task at hand (wrinkled and bespotted though that hand was).

He performed incredible demonstration of card dexterity for a cheering throng, we tried to remember which side of the TV Magic Cards we were supposed to have face-up.  At least that was what we felt at the time.

Mr. Walton will be appearing at The Castle this weekend and should not be missed.  He is a genuine star – not a genuine “future” star or promising young performer — the real deal.

Check out his impressive credentials and promotional materials on his website here.

Magic News

Couldn’t Have Happened to a Nicer Guy: Johnny Thompson Honored by LA Critics

Johnny Thompson and Pam as Great Tomsoni & Co.A while back we gave our review of Teller and Todd Robbins disturbing but very entertaining show Play Dead then showing at The Geffen Playhouse here in Los Angeles.

The writing was fantastic and matched the outstanding performance given by Mr. Robbins.  The magic was, though, was truly magical.

Today we learned through Teller’s contribution to Alan Watson’s always jam-packed with goodness Magic New Zealand newsletter that Johnny Thompson’s work to make the illusions and effects so effective has been recognized with a LA Drama Critics Circle award.

Mr. Thompson has an encyclopedic knowledge of our wonderful art and its history.  According to Penn Jillette, there is no one who knows more about the subject.  With his wife Pam, Mr. Thompson often performs as the hysterical and technically brilliant The Great Tomsoni & Co.  Though we have seen the act many times, we still embarrass ourselves with our high-pitched, almost girl-like laughing fits each time.

For as good as he is – and we agree with Mr. Jillette that he the elite of the elites – he does not engage in the type of self-promotion and chest-thumping we see from lesser-lights in our industry.  He does not even make a big deal of the fact that he is modest.

We get that “business” is an integral part of the term show-biz and that self-promotion is often the only type of promotion available to a young performer.  We accept that hiding one’s light under a bushel basket is an inefficient career move and only adds to one’s carbon footprint.  But it is refreshing to encounter performers who are really, really good and are not afraid to be judged solely on their work.

But Mr. Thompson could be modest, talented, lack the need to proclaim his superiority and still be a jerk.  In fact, he would deserve to be a jerk if he wanted.

But Mr. Thompson is decidedly not a jerk.

He is not dismissive of magicians who are just honored to meet him at a regional magic convention – say in Toledo – and seem unable to speak in complete sentences in his presence.  He does not dismiss those same magicians who encounter him, say, in Dallas at a national convention.  In fact, he is the kind of person who would invite that lesser-talented magician to sit and take part in a late-hour conversation in the lobby area with professionals the gawking magician had only seen on television or read about in magic magazines.

Mr. Thompson must have off-days.  He must occasionally feel it is unnecessary to cross a room to introduce himself – as if that would be necessary – to a magician/fan at a magic conference  set in some bucolic Michigan magic mecca setting like the Abbott’s Get-Together.   There must be times when he does not feel the need to engage in conversation with lesser magicians about their shared roots in Chicago.  We have never seen him on those days and, significantly, never read of others seeing him in that way.

Congratulations to Mr. Thompson for his award and recognition from a notoriously tough group of people to please, The LA Drama Critics.  We, as magicians, are fortunate to have people of his ability and demeanor in our art.

Magic on TV, Magician Feature

Magician Andrew Mayne Gets Great Press

Andrew-MayneToday’s edition of The Sun gives well-deserved coverage to Inside Magic Favorite Andrew Mayne and his new show Don’t Trust Andrew Mayne,

Mr. Mayne is an accomplished performer and prolific inventor of great effects.  The Sun gives us some insight into the self-effacing magician that is rarely the fodder of a typical feature piece about a network star.  It is refreshing to read.

But what about the show’s title?  Shouldn’t all magicians be beloved and trusted without question?  Why would a magician want to begin with the premise that he is untrustworthy?

“I liked the idea of using magic to do something ­different. In this case, instead of just watching me do ­something really cool, you get to see me use magic to help people get revenge on ­someone they love or to ­convey a ­pertinent ­message.”

We admit that our recent search of the internets shows there are no other “revenge magicians.”

(Here is a tip from your family-friendly editor, do not do a search using the words “revenge” and “trick” or “perform” if you are at work or have any concern that humanity is quickly sliding down a well-oiled slope towards a society where one would not want to saunter without first donning a hazmat suit and mega-dosing amoxicillin).

His approach is different than others who claim to be Street Magicians.  

“I can’t just ask someone for a ring, I have to convince them to give it to a stranger.”

That is a little tougher than confronting drunk groups of 20-somethings with a camera crew along to capture the moment.

(Editor: we assume the writer meant that the magician doing the confronting had a camera crew in tow as he confronted the drunken group of young people, not that the magician looked for the unique configuration — rarely seen on today’s city streets — of publicly intoxicated folks matching the show’s focus demographic who happen to also have a camera crew (presumably not similarly intoxicated) in their midst).

The Sun reporter asked Mr. Mayne if his impromptu audiences “see through him” on occasion.

“I think people see through me all the time!”

“I have had times when I do something like making a phone vanish – I then walk away thinking they are still standing there.

“Then someone will run up behind me and grab me and tackle me! They don’t know how it works but they know I had done something to them.”

His goal is not to prove himself superior to those he encounters.  

Yes, his reputation precedes him and, as seen in some of the clips on YouTube, some folks run the other way when they see him coming.

“On the whole, I think many know that I am a pretty nice guy and if I get hold of them, they are going to have fun.”

Check out Mr. Mayne’s website here: http://andrewmayne.com.

Latest Magic News

Brad Ross Takes Centenary Stage Again

image

After a sold out performance last year, the Merlin Award Winner for “Best International Family Entertainer” returns to the Centenary Stage. The Illusionary Magic of Brad Ross is back with some brand new tricks on Sunday, April 13 at 2 p.m. in the Lackland Center.

This International Star Illusionist combines magic, illusion, theatricality, comedy and fun into a family friendly experience for kids, parents and grandparents.

Ross has made more than 500 television appearances, with ABC television hailing him as the “Illusionist Extraordinaire,” and has impressed talk-show host Rosie O’Donnell, who exclaimed, “Brad Ross, you rock.”

Mr. Ross is also the founder of New Jersey’s local chapter of Project Magic, a charity program started by David Copperfield.

The International Magicians’ Society recognized Ross with the “Oscar of the magic industry,” the Merlin Award, for his work entertaining children and their families the world over.

To purchase tickets or to find more information on other CSC events, visit http://www.centenarystageco.org or call the CSC box office at 908-979-0900. Tickets for the Family Fun Series’ shows range from $17.50 to $20 in advance and $22.50 to $25 on the day of. Workshops are available for an additional $18.50 a person, limit of 50 people.

Magic News

Pepper’s Ghost Key in New Lawsuit Against Cirque du Soleil

Inside Magic Image for Tony Spain's Seance for ChildrenIt is not often when the worlds of west coast rap culture and classical illusion come together.  It is an even more rare event to have those two spheres of history collide with patent law.  Today, then, is a special day for fans of the late Tupac Shakur, Pepper’s Ghost and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

According to industry magazines (the entertainment industry) a company is suing Cirque du Soleil and MGM Resorts for their alleged infringement on a patent it owns.  The suit claims Cirque du Soleil’s Michael Jackson: One uses its patented technology to “create a hologram” of the late King of Pop for one of the final scenes of the show.

FilmOn  and hologram-maker Musion filed suit against the defendants in Los Angeles yesterday alleging Cirque du Soleil and MGM Resorts bring Michael Jackson back to the stage by an unlicensed use of their technology.

The complaint gives a little background on Pepper’s Ghost in its opening paragraphs – before getting to the meat of the issue:

“In 1862, John Pepper and Henry Dircks invented ‘Pepper’s Ghost,’ an illusion technique, which, over the last 150 years, has appeared in movies, concerts, magic shows and amusement park rides,” says the lawsuit. “Today a new incarnation of Pepper’s Ghost exists — Musion Eyeliner technology. Musion Eyeliner uses a patented system to project three-dimensional images virtually indistinguishable from real life bodies.”

The complaint then alleges that it is “widely acknowledged that Defendants employ the technology to create a three-dimensional hologram of Michael Jackson in Cirque du Soleil’s Michael Jackson: One, Defendants do not possess a valid license to practice that technology.”

One wonders what they mean by “widely acknowledged.”

This will be an interesting case to watch.  Patent law is an intricate and difficult world to navigate.  We make no claim of expertise and it is always tough to judge a claim by the opening salvo.  As we write this, the defendants have not issued a statement in reaction to the complaint but when they do, we will provide coverage.

We note that despite the headlines and the loose text that floats through coverage about the lawsuit, Pepper’s Ghost is not a hologram – not even a little.  It is – as the complaint notes – a method of projecting an image.  Plaintiffs complaint is that the method used to project the ghost onto a live stage is protected by their patents and therefore Cirque and MGM have infringed.  Perhaps our beef is with the misnaming of the illusion.

Read more about the lawsuit here: http://m.hollywoodreporter.com/entry/view/id/268549

Magic News

David Blaine: Waiting for the Wheels to Come Off

One must love an article that begins thusly:

The first time I meet David Blaine, he is weird. Zoned out, distracted or high on something. It’s a private dinner in an upstairs room at a London hotel and he enters without small talk. Dressed all in black with a black baseball cap, the American illusionist is big, bulky and intimidating.

The article in today’s The Evening Herald profiles magician David Blaine from a distance – at least emotionally.  The writer is clearly not one of the millions sold on the concept of David Blaine.  He views the performer as an oddity; hence an appropriate topic for a news story, we presume.

Mr. Blaine performs some pretty amazing effects for the reporter but he does not seem overly impressed.  The tricks he describes seem great but as the writer notes, “wImage of David Blaine on Inside Magice expect to be astonished.”  He does not say if he was astonished though.

Mr. Blaine confesses that despite his reputation as a performer of death-defying stunts, he is “obsessed with magic.”

He considers magic as a grounding center for his peripatetic life.  “It’s what drives me. It’s my favorite thing. It’s my saving grace. Like a meditation. I don’t even know what I would do without it.”

We know the feeling.  Give us a deck of cards and we are content.  Take away our deck of cards or our two silver dollars and the panic comes back.

Mr. Blaine teased his fans with scant information about an upcoming performance.

“There is a very big idea that I am going to do in London for the first time ever,” he says. “It’s a very simple idea, but it will be the best thing I have ever done. The most exciting. I know that it will drive me and I will push myself in a way I never would if it was not in front of me.”

It is scheduled to happen sometime in 2016 and in a football stadium.  That’s all we know so far.

We were thinking it would be the world’s longest performance of The Six Card Repeat.  That would have a lot of magicians watching for sure and there would be drama as he risked paper cuts and wrist injury.  Perhaps it is something different.

“No, an event. It is different from anything I have ever done, but combines everything. It will make sense out of everything I have spent my career working towards. If it works.” Continue reading “David Blaine: Waiting for the Wheels to Come Off” →

Magic News

Don’t Mess With Teller: Copyright Claim Upheld

Inside Magic Image of TellerDo not mess with Teller.

The silent half of Penn & Teller is an amazing writer, fine magic historian and incredible inventor of magic effects.  You put those three talents together and you have someone you do not want on the other side of a lawsuit.

Beginning with the premise that a magic trick is not per se protectable by the Copyright Act, certain aspects of the magical presentation may be.  Most lawyers would attempt to dissuade a client hoping to sue another performer over an alleged copyright infringement.  The burden of proof is tough, the case law does not support that type of claim (in most cases) and because the case will rise or fall based on the facts developed through litigation, it will be expensive to pursue.

U.S. District Judge James Mahan of Nevada agreed that in most cases a magic trick is not subject to copyright protection but, he observed in his ruling on Teller’s behalf, pantomimes are explicitly protected by the Copyright Act.

The effect at the center of the dispute is Teller’s famous and baffling Shadows.  Teller even registered “Shadows” with the U.S. Copyright Office in 1983.

Shadows essentially consists of a spotlight trained on a bud vase containing a rose. The light falls in a such a manner that the shadow of the real rose is projected onto a white screen positioned some distance behind it. Teller then enters the otherwise still scene with a large knife, and proceeds to use the knife to dramatically sever the leaves and petals of the rose’s shadow on the screen slowly, one-by-one, whereupon the corresponding leaves of the real rose sitting in the vase fall to the ground, breaking from the stem at exactly the point where Teller cut the shadow projected on the screen behind it.

Gerard Dogge offered to sell the secret behind Shadows via an advertisement on YouTube for $3,500.00 and included plenty of Penn & Teller keywords to lure the curious to his page.  Mr. Dogge claimed Teller’s copyright is not valid “because (A) it is registered as a dramatic work rather than a magic routine, (B) Teller abandoned his copyright, (C) Teller ‘openly challenged others to copy’ the work, and (D) Teller did not inform the public that Shadows is copyrighted.”

The judge wasn’t buying such foolishness.  The court wrote, “despite Dogge’s numerous attempts to utter an incantation to make the copyright disappear, the court finds that Teller maintains a valid interest as the creator and owner of Shadows.”

And as we wrote, do not mess with Teller.  He hired a private investigator to serve Mr. Dogge personally.  Mr. Dogge tried to hide and allegedly evaded service in Belgium, Spain and other locations on the continent.  Mr. Teller finally convinced the judge that Mr. Dogge had at least opened an email containing the service of process and complaint.  That was sufficient for jurisdiction and Mr. Dogge was forced to answer the complaint.

The best line of the court’s opinion granting Teller summary judgment against Mr. Dogge came near the end:

Dogge contends that the works are not substantially similar because his secret to performing the illusion differs from Teller’s, and because he uses a clear glass bottle instead of a vase in his However the court finds that these reaching arguments by Dogge exceed his limited grasp of copyright law. By arguing that the secret to his illusion is different than Teller’s, Dogge implicitly argues about aspects of the performance that are not perceivable by the audience. In discerning substantial similarity, the court compares only the observable elements of the works in question. Therefore, whether Dogge uses Teller’s method, a technique known only by various holy men of the Himalayas, or even real magic is irrelevant, as the performances appear identical to an ordinary observer.

The judge got it exactly right.

It is rare that being a copyright lawyer / magician gives us a chance to write about a combination of our favorite subjects, but this case did it for us.

Continue reading “Don’t Mess With Teller: Copyright Claim Upheld” →

Magic News

Houdini’s Magic Scrapbook – Now Available Online

Inside Magic Image of Wonderful Poster Promoting Harry Houdini's Incredible Milk Can Escape - Failure Means a Drowning DeathThe Harry Houdini Scrapbook Collection is now available for perusing through the Harry Ransom Center Digital Collections at the University of Texas. The institution received the scrapbooks indirectly from Bess Houdini who sold them to a New York lawyer in 1926, the year of the great magician’s passing.

The Ransom Center did painstaking digitalization work on the ten books to let researchers see what Houdini collected over his globe-trotting career.  The collection includes scrapbooks purchased from others and offer a great insight into the real-world of magic at the turn of the century.

Included in the collection are scrapbooks from performers such as mentalist and hypnotist S.S. Baldwin, who performed as “The White Mahatma,”  and on divergent subjects related to Houdini’s passionate study of frauds, spiritualism, magic history and other ephemera.

An amazing resource for fans of Houdini, magic, theatrical history and the best practices of scrapbook digitization can be found online at the Harry Ransom Center.

Latest Magic News

David Kwong Puzzles and Mystifies

Inside-Magic-BenefactorThere are some clever people in the world – we think we read that the current percentage of clever people (under the applicable ISO standard definition) is 17 percent.  We do not have actual data to support our belief that the percentage of similarly defined clever people in magic is much higher.  We have made up some estimates as high as 27 percent.

Magicians, by their nature, are clever people.  We marvel at ordinary things.  Trips to the hardware, crafts or electronic stores become wonderful adventures in imagination and exploration.  Anything written, said or shown can be analyzed by the naturally curious magician in an attempt to create magic.

So magicians are clever and constantly raise the bar on cleverness.  It is a wonderful source of inspiration and poor self-esteem to be around creative-types.

It is in that sense that we read with great admiration and instant self-condemnation that we did not think of the brilliant innovation designed by magician David Kwong.

We read this morning of his brilliant coup and association with our favorite Puzzle-Master Will Shortz  of The New York Times:

Today on stage at TED2014 magician and puzzler David Kwong blew minds when he pulled an audience member onstage, asked her to color in a few animals, and then revealed he was so sure he could predict her behavior that he had her choices written into the day’s New York Times crossword.

We loathe to give away secrets on Inside Magic and so we will only say that Mr. Kwong performed his miracle prediction through cooperation with Mr. Shortz and the crossword puzzle he edits for the Times.  You can read more about the arrangement here.

Mr. Shortz and Mr. Kwong have worked together in the realm of crossword puzzle creation.  Mr. Kwong is a master at designing the puzzles and has had several published by the Times.  This was their first magic trick.

Mr. Shortz loves being mystified and, interestingly, does not try to puzzle out a solution to the mystery.

“I’m fascinated by it, but I’m always fooled. I watch, and I look, and I say, ‘I have no idea how that was done.’ That’s how it is with David. I am so easily fooled.”

Guest Essay

Guest Contributor Lisa Cousins: A Spirit Among the Magicians

Inside Magic Image of Lisa Cousins in the Magic Castle's Parlor of PrestidigitationJoining the Magic Castle has been a wonderful experience and a great opportunity to meet people who share our passion for Magic.  Lisa Cousins works keeping the prestigious The William W. Larsen Memorial Library the fantastic resource it is for all members of The Magic Castle.  We are honored that she allowed us to print her essay in our humble magic news outlet.  You can read more about Ms. Cousins in an article published on LosAngeles.com.

I.  Obsessions

Harry Houdini is remembered first as an escape artist, but he was also a “séance-buster” who despised fraud in the séance room, and did all he could to expose it.  His 1924 book, A Magician Among the Spirits, is an account of his experiences with the spirit mediums of his day, and in no case did he discover anything but scams and shams and magic tricks.  He conducted his investigations with both an open mind and a wishful heart, as it was the death of his mother that led him to his inquiry into the realm of spirit in the first place.  He sincerely hoped that life continued after death and that communication with the departed was possible.  He was mortified to discover nothing but hokum, and morally outraged that bereaved people were being fleeced by con men using standard magician’s effects.

While he maintained that he was not a skeptic, his activities as a debunker inspired several generations of skeptical magicians to embrace him as their mascot.  There is a branch of magic called “gospel magic” where standard magic tricks are presented with a religious-instructive twist, but in the main magicians are a skeptical bunch.  They have direct experience with how easily people can be tricked, controlled, manipulated, and deceived, and using Houdini’s example as something of a guiding light, are in general quite dismissive of spirituality in any form.  This is all perfectly understandable, but for someone like myself, an avid reader and tremendous fan of spiritual literature for decades before I took up the study of magic, I entered the world of magic and magicians and found myself a stranger in a land already famously strange.

I don’t “believe in God.”  I experience divinity every minute of every day.  This has nothing to do with what becomes of us when we shed this mortal coil; this is strictly here-and-now.  What’s more, I have zero interest in persuading anybody to join me in my opinions.  I don’t see truth as some kind of numbers game, where stacking up the believers makes a truth any truer; indeed, I’m fond of Oscar Wilde’s observation that “A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes it.”  Even if I ardently wished to make you see this splendid world as I view it through my enraptured eyes, I couldn’t do it anyhow.  It’s too late, too unique to myself, the road was too long and full of surprise twists to fill you in on all the parts that contributed to “the making of” my point of view.  In other words, do your own studying.  Or not. Continue reading “Guest Contributor Lisa Cousins: A Spirit Among the Magicians” →