Christian Illusionist Brock Gill will be featured on the Discovery Channel in a special titled, Miracles of Jesus Christmas Eve. They'll broadcast the three one-hour shows back-to-back starting at 1:00 pm (EST).
The program is a result of the British Broadcasting Corp. investigation into the validity of Jesus' reported miracles.
The BBC asked Mr. Gill to visit the Holy Land and render an opinion
– based on his knowledge of mag — whether Jesus could have used
magic, hypnotism or some
other trick to create the illusion of miracles.
Mr. Gill told reporters, "I've always been fascinated by miracles, ever since I was a kid
reading the Bible stories."
The illusionist is upfront about his perspective. He never really
considered the possibility Jesus ' miracles were anything but. In the
show, Mr. Gill tells the audience that he is a Christian but that he
has tried to set-aside his beliefs to fairly consider the reported
miracles.
Mr. Gill prepared for the journey by reading and researching the skeptic's perspective of the miracle narratives.
"Before
I got into really doing the investigation, I did research on some of
the skeptics' views, and there were some quite convincing ideas. It
rattled me a little bit," said Mr. Gill. "I thought, 'I really want to
find the truth here.' "
The BBC producer was particularly impressed by Mr. Gill's illusion
and escape show. "We realized we didn't need an academic to lead the
program, but we needed somebody who was interested and knowledgeable
about Scripture and particularly interested in the miracles," Mr.
Bragard said.
Mr. Gill reports his faith was strengthened by the experience, not
shaken. "Before this year, my beliefs were based just on the Bible and
what my parents and pastors had told me," he said. "Now, I'm really
convinced that what I'm believing is the truth."
Check out Brock Gill's very cool web site.
There are two versions, both accessible from the main index page. One
leads to the Flash ver. 8 and the other to the Flash ver. 7. We were
limited in our processing power and could only visit the older
rendition.
Most impressive is the show types and illusion list. He performs
some pretty risky magic including an underwater escape as well as a
bullet catch.
While searching the web, we also found a blog run by his wife,
Auny. Ms. Gill is an incredible writer. You get a great feel for the
life of a family committed to bringing Jesus' message to modern day
audiences through our wonderful art.
We knew we liked Mr. and Mrs. Gill when we saw they were fans of
Toby Mac – our favorite Christian Musician and former member of the
incredible D.C. Talk.
In connection with NBC’s broadcast of the Rose Parade, FTD will provide you and a companion with behind the scenes access to the Rose Parade float featuring Master Magician Lance Burton.
Oh, yeah, and also tickets to the National Championship game.
We love the Rose Parade but have never seen it in person. Sure, we’ve tooled our rent-a-car down Colorado Avenue and tossed candy to people on the sidewalks, but that wasn’t related to the Rose Parade nor, as we will prove at the upcoming hearing, a crime.
But this year’s edition of the Rose Parade will be different depending upon your vantage point.
The Pasadena Star-News (CA) begins the pre-Rose Bowl hype with news of a first for parades. The parade will be “television friendly.”
Organizers hope to avoid the mishaps televised live from this year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
“For the Tournament of Roses, this is the Year of Home Entertainment. With the national audience down by 20 million viewers in just the last three years, parade officials have urgently sought new ways to attract eyeballs to their sponsors’ floats.
The result: three floats will stop cold at “TV corner” for a minute of singing, dancing and magic. While spectators farther down Colorado Boulevard scratch their heads, living rooms around the world will be treated to a made-for-TV spectacle unseen at any previous Rose Parade.”
The last and featured place in the parade “will be the last entertainment float, sponsored by the floral company FTD and featuring Las Vegas magician Lance Burton.”
“It’s tying in with the Tournament of Roses theme this year: ‘It’s Magical,”‘ said Megan Buchanan, spokeswoman for FTD. “I definitely think it’s a great add-in to the parade, and I definitely think it’s going to attract more viewers.”
FTD offers two vacation packages tied to the magic theme and the National Championship game set for the Rose Bowl.
We note one of the packages includes a “behind the scenes” visit to the FTD float and presentation but it is not clear whether this would include a chance to meet Master Magician Lance Burton.
We commend FTD on a great choice of themes and representative.
“Ex-Raiders kicker Ford in mental facility after shooting.”
The story gives flesh to the skeletal accounts other papers have
provided about Cole Ford, his college and NFL career, his struggle with
mental illness and finally the imprisonment for firing his shotgun at
Siegfried & Roy’s Vegas estate.
In 1996, Mr. Ford was called upon to kick the winning field goal for
the hapless Raiders. Despite their terrible record (4-5) they had a
shot at making the play-offs. With nine seconds left in the final
quarter, Mr. Ford pushed the 28-yard kick to the left and Oakland lost
in overtime.
“From that short a distance, I’d better make it,” Tampa
Bay kicker Michael Husted said, “or not plan on showing up here on
Monday morning.”
Ford would make it back the next day and for one more dismal season.
And then the bright lights of the gridiron faded, and Ford would fall
further than anyone could imagine.
Mr. Ford moved almost involuntarily up through the football ranks
from high school star, USC Trojan stand-out, NFL Draft-Choice, and NFL
Pro to living in a van, drifting throughout the Southwest, and finally
to the drive of Siegfried & Roy’s palatial Vegas estate.
By all accounts, Mr. Ford was a stellar student, one of the
strongest kickers in college and the NFL. He was so driven to
succeed he suffered injuries from over-training.
His release from his
final professional contract funded his later world-travel to
contemplate his life. As the money ran-out, his travels left him
living out of a van in the Southwest.
His travels took him to Las Vegas, where he turned his
focus to sports bookmaking operations at casinos.
In January 2004, Ford
filed a $5 million suit against the Monte Carlo hotel-casino, claiming
the casino industry took advantage of athletes.
We loved the book and reviewed it right after it became available at our local bookstore / library. Library for us, bookstore for suckers.
Finally, there is a critic appreciative of the skill, technique and
artistry required to manipulate cards for gambling or performance.
YOU won’t realize this until you start trying, but
manipulating a simple deck of cards is as hard as mastering an oboe.
Among the many virtues of Karl Johnson’s “The Magician and the
Cardsharp,” with its prodigious research and compelling settings and
characters, is that it conveys the allure of playing cards and the
singular focus required to learn to manipulate them. At its heart, it
is a tale of art and obsession.
The critic approves
of the portrait of Dai Vernon as “the 20th century’s most influential
performer of magic, responsible in large measure for its conversion
from huge stage simulations of the supernatural to table-top
demonstrations of sleight of hand.”
He even correctly identifies the central premise of Mr. Vernon’s
philosophy toward magic. “He emphasized naturalness achieved by
prodigious skill, the result of thousands of hours of practice. Johnson
rightly places Vernon’s achievement in the context of art history,
particularly that of Impressionist painting and jazz music.”
Mr. Vernon’s place in the history of magic parallels magic’s place in America during the Jazz Age.
[The] narrative oscillates from New York magic circles
where Vernon rubbed shoulders with legends such as Max Malini, Nate
Leipzig and Harry Houdini to the world of vice in Pleasant Hill and
Kansas City.
There, jazz was exploding along with gambling, and Count Basie and
Bill Kennedy honed their chops simultaneously. When these worlds
collide, Vernon and his prot?g? Charlie Miller almost get killed
walking into the wrong rooms and asking after the card mechanic with
the impossible move.
The story climaxes when Vernon tracks Kennedy to his home and learns
the center deal. Vernon and Kennedy never meet again, and as Kennedy
declines into alcoholism, Vernon becomes the personification of
conjuring for generations of magicians, holding forth into his and the
20th century’s 90s at the Magic Castle in Los Angeles.
The L.A. Times critic cryptically observes in conclusion, “[t]hat
Vernon cared so much about something so essentially useless is his
illumination of art and of the human condition, of our inspiring or sad
ability or need to make something unnecessary into the meaning of a
life.”
We are pleased to see the book receive the type of review it and its subject deserves.
We enjoy the behind the scenes stories of great magicians. The Mark Wilson column is one of the first things we read in Genii Magazine each month. Mr. Wilson’s performances have always been impressive. But when we read what happened on the way to the performance, we are blown away.
The Spencers offer an almost daily update on what it is like to be on tour with a major illusion show around the world.
We look forward to viewing and reviewing the duo’s new DVD from their recent tour through Asia.
We hope they don’t mind but here’s a taste of what we read on their site this evening:
“The holidays are coming at us like a freight train. We’re trying to gear up for the festivities and gear down in the office. New Year’s Eve and our “surprise event” for WINTERFEST will be here before you know it. On top of everything else, we’re working diligently to put that together.
David and I have finished the new Healing of Magic DVD and are just minutes from completing the marketing DVD for Australia and the U.S. We’ve actually knocked out quite a few projects in the last few days.
I know the one thing that I have not done yet is post the 2006 Spring Tour! I promise – in spite of my past promises – that I’m working on getting that done. My own team would like to know where we’ll be touring this spring! I just haven’t taken the time to do it. I will – soon.”
It is a great read and they are great people. Check it out.
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