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Royal Misses The Boat ? Disses Magic Circle with New Stamps

 

 

Presentation Pack of Magic Circle Stamps (Devant on Right)

Stanley Gibbons is a magic fan but more importantly, for the purposes of this article, he is a philatelist.  That is a good thing, not a dirty thing.  He is a stamp collector’s collector.  His Gibbons Stamp Monthly is one of the neat magazines on the web and usually filled with things that have little to do with the world of magic.

 

In his March issue, though, Mr. Gibbons quotes Magic Circle member Brian McCullagh’s displeasure at the Royal Mail’s dissing ? our word ? of The Magic Circle.  As we all know, the venerable London-based organization celebrates its centennial this summer and it is easy to think just because all magicians think this is a big deal, all will feel the same enthusiasm.

 

So while Mr. McCullagh does credit the Royal Mail for remembering the special occasion, he is keen to point out that they “missed the boat” in their method of celebration.

 

Mr. McCullagh writes:  

 

“The stamps have ?The Magic Circle? on them, but nothing else. I do know that I don?t like the stamps. I saw their images (nothing else) and I was tremendously disappointed. I felt Royal Mail had ?missed the boat?. A golden opportunity was presented not only to produce stamps that would reflect well on them, but they could also do much to educate the public as to the full meaning of Magic (Conjuring). One person to whom I showed the stamps said, ?They present Magic as a children?s plaything!?”

 

Indeed. 

 

While the presentation pack for the five commemorative stamps shows images of past and present master magicians, the stamps themselves lack any images familiar to magicians or significant to the public.  A great opportunity has been missed, suggests Mr. McCullagh. 

 

He observes that the general public is unfamiliar with the first president and the country’s greatest magician, David Devant.  The publicity provided by the stamp issue would have educated the public and paid homage to a great man. 

 

The stamps are tricks in themselves, however. …
Continue reading Royal Misses The Boat ? Disses Magic Circle with New Stamps

February 16th, 2005 | Category: Magic News | Leave a comment

Sorry Dan Harlan: Math Magic Improves on Illusion

 

 

Dr. Erik Demaine

Dr. Erik Demaine is a former magician and from a family of curious magic-lovers.  He currently works as a professor of computer science at MIT and teaches theoretical origami mathematics.  As the title suggests, he teaches the “formal study of what can be done with a folded sheet of paper.”

 

So what?

 

We’ll tell you what.  Dr. Demaine currently proves the existence of shapes long doubted to be possible such as a hyperbolic parabaloid.  This is a shape so unique that even the Microsoft Word spell check function doesn’t know it.  (It suggested the term “hyperbolic pureblood” instead). 

 

Dr. Demaine’s work has been published in peer-review journals for his landmark studies featuring solutions to many “single-cut” problems and “carpenter’s rule” mysteries. 

 

He uses his work in origami to help develop solutions to questions in architecture, robotics and molecular biology.

 

As a young magician, Dr. Demaine and his father discussed one of Houdini’s legendary effects.  Legend has it (hence making it a “legendary” effect) that before Houdini became an escape artist he had a career as a magician and supposedly performed a trick in which he folded a piece of paper, then cut across the creases to “magically” create a five-pointed star.

 

Modern magicians have used the same type of ingenuity to create a star from a single cut. 

 

In 1998, Dr. Demaine and his dad proved to the world that one could effectively make any shape just with folding and a single cut?a star, a swan or a unicorn.  You can even create multiple shapes with a single snip of the scissors?2 stars, 10 stars or 50 stars if you like. One set of shapes that can be produced this way is the letters of the alphabet.

 

One theoretical physicist opined that in theory (hence the reason we are quoting a “theoretical” physicist) you “could produce the complete works of Shakespeare with a single cut.”

 

This story is especially pertinent…
Continue reading Sorry Dan Harlan: Math Magic Improves on Illusion

February 16th, 2005 | Category: Magic Stories | Leave a comment