Inside Magic

We stumbled across a web site called The Vapor Trail and are delighted. 

Melissa Bellanta’s article, "Putting the Dark Back into the Ritz and Patter" offers a well-written history of the magician from the 1800′s to present day.

Melissa Bellanta has her has a post doctorate degree at the University of Queensland in Australia.  She works as a cultural historian based at the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies in Queensland and the blog is her research home.

The blog is absolutely fascinating.  

Dr. Bellanta "wants to find out what popular theatre has to tell us about belief
in the late 19th and early 20th centuries."

The About page for the blog continues:

What did ordinary people
think about religion, science, the afterlife, and the nature of reality
in Anglo society? She?s especially interested in ?mystic theatre?:
public seances, magic shows, displays of mental telepathy and
mesmerism, popular lectures on spiritualism and paranormal phenomena.

Dr. BalIanta’s most current article evaluates the role of 19th Century magic acts in forming and informing "Western reality."

Continue reading 19th Century Magicians and Patter

The Fresno
Bee goes front and center with a preview of the Hocus Pocus’ Second Annual Swap Meet and
Get-Together scheduled for this
weekend.

If you
like Mark Wilson, and we Love Mark Wilson, this will be the event for our West
Coast friends this weekend.  On the East Coast, the big doings will be in
Columbia, South Carolina for SCAM.

Paul Gross owns the Hocus Pocus
Magic Shop and is the prime mover behind the Swap Meet and Get-Together.
 

"This year, we have expanded to Saturday and Sunday. What I would
like is to get enough people to attend where we would then go to three days next
year. What I would eventually like to do, if the magic swap meet keeps growing,
is to turn this into a convention. We would look at moving it to a larger
facility," he told reporters.

Surely he
must be insane, however.  He is not charging admission to visit the swap meet.
 He has already signed on more than 40 vendors for the area.

Doesn’t
Mr. Gross realize all magic conventions must make admission into the dealers’
room contingent on the payment of some enormous registration fee? 

Continue reading Paul Gross – Hocus Pocus Swap Meet Weekend