Mr. Mead eschews the big-box magic of illusionists.
“That makes me feel like a furniture-mover,” Mr. Mead, a Snowmass Village resident, said of the big-box trick.
“Because you know that it’s not me, it’s the prop that does it. When
you have that big box, it’s hard to make it look like you’re doing
anything at all. It’s hard to put any kind of self-expression into
that.”
The coverage is coordinated with Mr. Mead’s latest gig at the St. Regis Hotel.
Practicing what is known as “close-up” magic, Mead puts
virtually no distance between the audience and himself. Mead sits at a
table and, on a recent Monday night, the four-deep crowd pushed forward
so that those seated in front weren’t even an arm’s length from the
magician.
The act is heavy on audience participation, with ladies and
gentlemen picking cards, examining coins and safety pins for gimmicks.
Mead even allows people to stand behind him – which he says is not
ideal, but adds a further layer of challenge. He is comfortable and
familiar with the viewers; several of them he has known for years, from
his days at Snowmass’ defunct Tower Magic Bar, and calls them by name.
A warm sense of humor seems essential to his act. The effect of this
intimacy is to close the gap between magician and audience, and
simultaneously to heighten the experience of mystery that Mead says is
essential to good magic.
We found Mr. Mead’s philosophy refreshing and innovative. “I work
really hard at the idea that it’s not me doing a show and you watching.
We’re both doing both parts. Magic in a vacuum is meaningless.”
In fact, as we noted in our first filmstrip on magic theory back in 1967, Magic Theory – 1967, “magic in a vacuum is more than meaningless, it sucks.” Educational Filmstrip & Media Corp (Evanston 1967).
The Easton Journal reports renowned Boston magician David Hall will bring his bag of amazing illusions and tricks to Striar Jewish Community Center on Monday, Jan. 16, at 1:30 p.m. for a special family performance in honor of Martin Luther King Day.
Mr. Hall is known for his very popular outdoor performances at Faneuil Hall Marketplace. He will bring the high-energy performance to a new, young audience at the Striar JCC.
Mr. Hall’s family-oriented show includes magic, illusions, levitation and the special touches we know will endear him to the young people at the JCC.
Mr. Hall has the honor of being the youngest magician to be certified as a Faneuil Hall street performer. His reputation has grown exponentially since his debut on the scene in 2001.
Mr. Hall regularly performs at private parties for the rich and famous, including the Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger, Red Sox owner John Henry, and World Series pitcher Curt Schilling. A recent entertainer at the Celtics halftime show, he thrilled youngsters at Camp West Woods last summer.
If you’d like to check out his act, you can attend the JCC show. Tickets are a steal: $6.00 members, $8.00 non-members; add $1.00 at the door.
The show is perfect for kids four and up (adults as well). Plus, non-members also are invited to purchase a guest pass and spend the day at the JCC.
Do yourself a favor and check out Mr. Hall’s web site. As you know, we are harsh critics of magic web sites — likely to make up for our own inadequacies — but we could find nothing to criticize about Mr. Hall’s web site.
No, not the Declan McManus a/k/a Elvis
Costello. The other Declan McManus. The Declan McManus Jackson Hole
authorities are still trying to find.
According to the police, this Declan McManus posed as a magician of
Irish heritage and swindled 237 people out of more than $100,000,
before vanishing last month. The police say he is “a reputed impostor,
fugitive and heartless grifter at work for more than a decade.”
We checked out his web site — really just a sparse Blogger .Com
page — to read more about the magician some call Declan McManus.
According to his own posting under the pseudonym “Spoonbender,” he
is beloved by the hoi-polloi around the world. Most suspect to us was
a quote attributed to our hero Wolfman Jack.
We worked in radio for years and worshipped The Wolfman. We
consider July 1, 1995 a solemn date marking the day Mr. Jack died of a
heart attack.
[Editors' note: We received a much anticipated dispatch from Kerala, India reporting on the first Mazma (celebration) of traditional street magic.
The event attracted folks from around the world to watch,
perform, learn, and keep alive this seminal form of magic. We've
covered the preparations for this event on Quinlan's Inside Magic and are happy to report that it exceeded the already high expectations.
Congratulations to Gopinath Muthukad for his incredible efforts
on behalf of all magicians and for his success in this inaugural event].
Traditional magic of India has been a subject of enduring enigma for magic fans all over the world.
The pace of progress in the fields of science and technology has
gifted a tint of modernity to our native magic too. If we go by the
words of Wouter Bijdendijk, a member of Dutch Magic Union, ‘foreigners
still find a magic charm in the name India itself’.
Ashique Hussain of Delhi
The 27-year-old Wouter had been in Thiruvananthapuram to attend Mazma,
the first national festival of street magicians conducted by Magic
Academy on 10, 11 December, under the aegis of the Department of
Culture, Government of Kerala.
Needless to say that Mazma was a creation born in the inventive brain of our own Houdini, Gopinath Muthukad.
Wouter, who even performed a unique Indian-styled levitation act in
the city as a forerunner to impending festival, was just one in the
consortium of foreign magicians, who were irresistibly beckoned by Mazma.
Indian magic has an age-old history frilled by glittering feats
including the Great Indian Rope Trick, Green Mango Trick, Indian Basket
and the Cups and Balls contributed by the doyen of Kerala magic,
Vazhakunnam Neelakantan Namboodiri.
“These items are evergreen in the hands of our street magicians.
Indian street magicians are guardians to several unexplored and
uncommon routines in magical art that have been passed on through
vagrant generations”, says Gopinath Muthukad.
It was this observation that his Academy came forward resolutely to salvage the unsung heroes of the streets.
State of street magicians in India is highly deplorable.
They live in slums and street sides deprived of all basic elements
of dignity including shelter, food or education. In a face-to-face with
the media, street magician from Kerala, Shamsudeen lamented that a full
day show fetches him a meager amount of Rs.100 or 250 at the maximum.
“Urban development has left us into a sheer state of insecurity.
Authorities have totally neglected us who live out of magic shows.
We are no more allowed to pull crowds at street sides” complained magician Ashiq Hussain from Shadipur of Delhi.
Mazma became a stage for these stars of the streets to
unleash their inherent talent. There were competitions and the hefty
prize money announced for the winners doubled their enthusiasm.
Around 50 adept teams of street magicians from Kerala, Tamil Nadu,
Andhra Pradesh, Gujrat, Rajasthan and Delhi… Continue reading Mazma Huge Success!
Everyone knows — in fact, it is almost cliche — when you want
information about any floral-oriented parade in Pasadena, California
Russia’s main news agency is the key Rose Parade source.
It is no surprise the best Rose Parade coverage can be found in Pravda. As they say in the reporters’ bar here at the spacious Holiday Inn Pasadena, “Pravda is to the Rose Parade as The Daily Racing Form is to the Kentucky Derby.”
So true. So Pravda.
We found the Pravda reporters working around-the-clock to beat their competition from Home and Garden Television.
We weren’t surprised Pravda skipped the comparatively irrelevant news of Putin economic adviser Andrei Illarionov’s resignation to cover the strife facing the Rose Parade organizers.
In the land of perennial youth and movie star beauty, the Rose Parade is
getting a major makeover for the first time in 117 years.
The annual Tournament of Roses will kick off on Monday with a
splashy performance by Grammy-winning singer LeAnn Rimes, complete with
dancers and aerial performers. The extravaganza will be jazzed up
further by mid-parade performances by singer Toni Braxton and magician
Lance Burton.
With the CBS television network having quietly decided to drop coverage of the event after 45 years, parade organizers,
hoping to keep TV viewers and the remaining broadcasting outlets happy,
have ratcheted up the rolling flowerfest’s entertainment quotient.
The Rose Parade has been designed specifically for television this year in a urgent effort to retain future coverage.
Parade organizers and major-sponsor FTD hired Mr. Burton to perform on camera and sit atop the featured float.
We will keep you up-to-date on any late-breaking news from the Rose Parade found in the pages of Pravda.
We also have the latest from Home and Garden Television’s
wall-to-wall coverage of the Rose Parade. They give much space to Mr.
Burton, his work, his history, his awards, and the task of pulling in
viewers for the parade.
By the way, the official float line-up is out with Mr. Burton’s FTD ride at No. 56. That puts him right after The Southwest Dekalb High School Marching Panther Band and right before Scripps Miramar Saddlebreds.
The Dekalb band is famous for their work in the movie Drumline and Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade entries. But we think the placement is perfect for Mr. Burton.
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