Kevin and Cindy Spencer Talk About Their Magic.The Columbus Georgia Ledger-Enquirer has a great profile of one of our favorite magic teams.Tonight (Friday), the duo will perform their acclaimed touring show, The Spencers: Theater of Illusion at the River Center in Columbus, Georgia.
The life of a traveling magician was always a dream job for Mr. Spencer.Now, after 21 years on the road, he fulfills it every day with Ms. Spencer, two employees and a 65-foot truck carrying some incredible illusions.According to the Ledger-Enquirer article, “next to David Copperfield, the Spencers have the biggest touring magic show in the country.”
After meeting Harry Blackstone, Jr. in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Mr. Spencer knew he wanted to follow his childhood ambition of being a touring magician.
He changed his major from Clinical Psychology to Theater Arts.“I studied to help people’s minds and now I just mess with them,” Mr. Spencer told the paper.
Kevin Spencer
After college, Mr. Spencer had a chance to meet with the incredible Doug Henning after the Canadian illusionist’s show. Mr. Henning took about an hour to talk with the young man and then allowed him to speak with the show’s Road Manager and Accountant.
He had a great relationship with Mr. Henning and Mr. Blackstone, Jr. He told the Ledger-Enquirer that both great magicians told him to “be yourself.”He has followed that instruction. “On the stage, we are the same people that we are off stage. When you do what you love, that passion will come out.”
On a personal note: Magicians are an insecure lot.Magicians who spend their waking hours washing their hands and writing about magicians are even more insecure than the rest.A good friend we pay to listen to our ramblings in 51 minute increments once said, “everyone is insecure but most have no reason to be.”We waited for the next sentence but none… Continue reading The Spencers: Incredible Our Web-Based Therapy Session
Joseph Young works with elementary school students in making objects disappear. He told about 700 fifth graders at the J.W. Adams Combined School in Virginia, “It’s your job to do the magic. The magic of making cigarettes, drugs and alcohol disappear.”
The show was a part of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (?DARE?) program. Each Wise County school was represented at the assembly, which was held at J.W. Adams Combined School.
Mr. Young performs as “The Amazing Joseph Young,” sounds like a show to catch. He performs an act in which Rubik?s Cubes disappear, reappear and grow, all to a musical theme. According to the article in the Coal Field News, Mr. Young?s show went beyond manipulating the incredibly frustrating puzzle pieces. He invited the law enforcement officers and students to the stage to help.
While the show had a light-hearted feel, it included Mr. Young?s recounting the tragic deaths of two teens.After drinking and drugging, the teens were involved in a fatal accident.
The show ended on an up-beat, however. Mr. Young performed the disappearing bottle (into a paper bag) and produced treats for the audience. “I’m not just a magician,” he said, “I am a school assembly educator.”
Excellent job Mr. Young!You are now officially on our Good Guy List. Thanks for making us all look good.
Now, when we think of this excellent convention, we think of the Houdini Museum as well. We’re going to try to do both and we’re pumped. Dorothy Dietrich is one of our big heroes and we?re hoping to see the only female magician we know of to perform the bullet-catch not once but twice.
It happens this Saturday October 16th 2004 in Kingston PA. Only 2 hours from NYC, 45 minutes from the Poconos, Only 1 hour from NJ, only 14 hours from Tennessee, and 22 hours from Florida.
Bob Elliot to Lecture
This full day convention runs from 10am to 10pm and costs only $20.00 for the full day. Attendees will be able to not only see magic at the convention but also stop by the Houdini Museum in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
This convention will feature several great acts including: Frank the Magician, a local favorite and young magician on the way up. Bob Remaley and his wife will perform their acclaimed act; which is not to be missed. Ben Salinas will also be featured on the show.
Twelve Year-Old Magician Inspired By Rick Wilcox. Zach Hext is doing well and doing better. This young man became intrigued with our art when he saw Cliff the Magic Man of Rhinelander, Wisconsin. His intrigue turned in to obsession after seeing the incredible magician Rick Wilcox perform at his theater in Wisconsin Dells.
Mr. Hext said he had a chance to talk with Mr. Wilcox after the show, buy his first magic set, and even learn his first effect from Mr. Wilcox.Says Mr. Hext, “[Mr.] Wilcox is a magician I look up to, along with the street magician David Blaine.?
Mr. Hext was hooked not only on magic but also the advice and friendship of Mr. Wilcox. He purchases his magic from the Dean of the Wisconsin Dells. ?I know it’s quality stuff and I have the advantage of the personal lessons that go with them. One trick I purchased for $115 and I call it the ?Silk Cabby.? Another cost me $150 that I call the ?Temple Screen.? These are both impressive and my favorite tricks.?
Rick and Suzan Wilcox
Mr. Hext is in great hands with Mr. Wilcox. If you have not yet made your pilgrimage to the Wisconsin Dells to see Mr. Wilcox perform in a theater perfectly suited for magic, you need to make immediate amends. You feel the magic of the place just walking into the lobby of the beautiful Rick Wilcox Theater.
A couple of months ago, we announced we were no longer accepting advertising from Penguin Magic.This was a financially difficult decision but not a philosophically difficult choice.We objected and still object to Penguin Magic selling products that are “knock-offs” or direct copies of tricks invented by others.
The effect that caused us to make the decision was the Magic Makers’ version of Badlands Bob.George Robinson, Jr. owns the rights to the effect and sells it for $45.00.We have purchased the effect at this price and based on our audience reaction; we believe it is a fair price.The effect is stunning, the props can be examined closely before and after the trick and the workmanship of the props makes $45.00 a reasonable and fair price.Not too much, not too little.
You can buy the same effect from Penguin Magic for a mere $12.95 as the Obedient Die.We cannot say definitively that the method is identical to that used in Boblands Bob but based on emails with Penguin Magic (“Penguin”) and Viking Manufacturing (“Viking”); we believe it is the same.
Penguin is able to price the effect so much lower than Viking precisely because it did not expend the time or resources necessary to invent, perfect and develop a method of producing the effect.Badlands Bob made the Obedient Die marketable.Viking and its predecessors in marketing rights, expended the time, crafted the advertisements, placed the ads, promoted the effect at conventions and stood behind it as began emerge as a marketable effect.Viking also took on the considerable risk that all of its investment in the trick would be for naught if magicians did not buy it.
Ask any magic inventor whether every effect produced is marketable and a success.For every Color Monte, there must be 20 to 25 packet tricks that still sit on dealers’ shelves.They move only when pushed out of the way to get to the “hot trick.”Ask yourself as well.Have you come up with a move, a trick, a flourish, a routine that you thought was marketable?How often have your instincts proven accurate?
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