We wrote about this amazing duo a couple of weeks ago. The article previewed their upcoming appearance on Asia Uncut. It was impressive. We don’t get the network on which J C Sum and “Magic Babe” Ning appeared here in Mystic Hollow – even with our hacked-up satellite antennae.
Ning does one heck of a great straight-jacket escape — very clever and entertaining.
Well, the magic couple have returned with a new event to promote.
On June 27, 2009, J C Sum and “Magic Babe” Ning will attempt “The Impossible Record.”
What is “The Impossible Record,” you ask.
We will let J C Sum explain:
Set to a countdown timer in front of an expected audience of 5000 people, Ning & I will attempt to perform a world record-setting 15 grand illusions in 5 minutes.
Grand illusions are defined as large-scale stage magic acts that involve physicality and usually utilize, but not limited to, large props. Sleight of hand acts, card tricks, magic with birds or handkerchiefs do not constitute as grand illusion.
The record attempt will be adjudicated by the Singapore Book of Records and the International Brotherhood of Magicians. The record is the first ever magic record of any kind to be adjudicated by the Singapore Book of Records and is also being submitted to Guinness World Records.
For this mega event, we will be making ourselves appear, vanish, teleport, exchange places, dissect their bodies, pass through solid objects, making a motorcycle appear, and much more in this physically and mentally challenging feat of attempting 15 grand illusions in 5 minutes.
“A small figurine of a boy, legs and arms stick-thin and spread out, rest in peace in magician Aarthi Mangala JM’s humid hands. She gently whooshes twice over them and the figure, as if life is induced into it, rises slowly.”
Like most magicians in India, the young magician is quick to point out her work is based on science and not black magic.
“Science is definitely the basis for all magic,” she told the paper. Her power is not maayajalam, an integral part of religion, but applied science.
We cannot disagree with her belief that “‘magic is not about tricking people. It’s about entertaining them with the wonders of science. ‘And it’s not just that also. Everything needs a purpose. My tricks are worth the time spent on it only if there is a theme or message that they convey.’”
And take it from us — or don’t — she is good!
If you don’t trust our judgment — and that is usually a smart move — you can see for yourself by checking out the YouTube video of a recent show. It really is very good.
Aarthi is proud of her involvement with magic so far. But how did she get hooked? At five, she needed to present something, anything, for a school cultural event and was frustrated. Her father hooked her up with a magician friend, she learned a few effects, performed them, received applause and adulation, and voila.
“The applause I got was infectious. That still drives me to learn more, and I have worked under over a dozen magicians across the country,” she said. It is clear from the videos that she loves the audience and the feeling is apparently mutual. We are sure she’ll be a big name in magic very soon.
She has been a darling of the media for a while. If we are not mistaken, there was a very nice article in The Hindu from her younger days — back in 2005.
The International Magicians Society (“IMS”) named Turkish magician, screenwriter and professor, Kubilay “QB” Tunçer their 2009 Merlin Award winner.
This is hot news. How hot? We learned about it from the on-line outlet for Hurriyet Daily News of Istanbul but found no other outlets carrying the story, yet.
The IMS has not yet updated their web site to announce the 2009 Merlin winner.
Mr. Tunçer is a man of many skills. In addition to his award-winning magic, he writes critically acclaimed plays, television scripts, and films. If that is not enough, he is an accomplished actor and starred with the beautiful Lale Mansur in the 2002 play Ordinary Miracles during its run in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. But wait, there’s more. He is also a professor at the prestigious Bilgi University in Istanbul; plus, consults with major corporations like Hyundai and Pfizer. He vanished a new vehicle for the former and used his magic ingenuity to launch the latter’s new drug.
Mr. Tunçer’s world tour took him through the States last year. He performed with Jeff McBride in Magical Wonderground in Vegas in October 2008. According to the Hurriyet Daily News, he was the first Turkish magician to appear in Las Vegas.
The Amazing Johnathan is more than just Amazing. He is like a worker ant, industrious and underground.
The Amazing Johnathan can cause us to laugh even when we are determined not to. He has a direct line to the special set of ganglia in what some charitably call our brain. When we watch him perform, we become like a monkey on crack — or more like a monkey on crack than normal.
But we have a refined taste and our predilections may not match yours. That makes yours wrong.
Admit it, guzzling Windex and lye is genius!
No less an influential thinker than Jean-Jacques Rousseau (“J.J.” to us) identified this very phenomenon in the late 1700′s. In his Letter to d’Alembert he argues against the establishment of theater in Geneva because plays touch the audience directly and allow for the manipulation of the emotions. In fact, said Rousseau, comedies are worse than tragedies. In tragedy, there may be some connection with the characters on stage, and perhaps it will evoke empathy. But in a comedy, the audience laughs because of a special connection with the characters and the situations they face.
So, what have we established? The Amazing Johnathan is worthy of his title and has a special power to control the higher-functioning comedy aficionados among us. J.J. Rousseau knew this type of theatrical genius could cause problems. And like a worker ant, The Amazing Johnathan is both industrious and subterranean.
The Amazing Johnathan built a theater beneath the surface of Las Vegas, Nevada. But it is not just any subterranean theater. It is a subterranean drive-in theater with cars, and a snack-bar, and a giant screen, and those little speakers you hang on your car door.
The Amazing Johnathan told The Cleveland Examiner, “I needed a cool environment to display my classic car collection. There are twenty-one cars in all and I thought a Drive-In movie set would look great. Then I decided to make it functional so my friends and I could watch late night movies. I also made it look like the Gratiot Drive-In, the theater I worked at in Roseville, MI.”
The May 21, 2009 on-line edition of the journal Advance for LPNs features Cynthia Blank Reid captivating review of the ultimately unsuccessful trauma treatment administered Harry Houdini.
Ms. Reid approaches the Houdini case not as a magic historian or Houdini enthusiast. Her expertise is in medical miracles. She works as a trauma clinical nurse specialist in Philadelphia and her perspective is illuminating.
She gives a clinical evaluation of Houdini’s physical condition prior to his appendicitis.
“Houdini was a relatively small man, standing 5’5″,” she writes. ”He kept himself in shape by swimming, running and doing acrobatics. His medical history was unremarkable until early October 1926, when a series of events would culminate in his death.”
Houdini’s ability and willingness to perform through pain was evidenced when he broke a bone earlier in that fateful year.
“Then, one night in 1926, while performing his famous Water Torture Cell escape, during which Houdini hung suspended upside-down in a chamber of water, ropes secured to his feet were jerked improperly, causing his ankle to break. Houdini refused medical care, insisting the show go on.”
We wrote about this amazing duo a couple of weeks ago. The article previewed their upcoming appearance on Asia Uncut. It was impressive. We don’t get the network on which J C Sum and “Magic Babe” Ning appeared here in Mystic Hollow – even with our hacked-up satellite antennae.
She is just 17-years-old but has powers to bring life to inanimate objects.
The International Magicians Society (“
The Amazing Johnathan can cause us to laugh even when we are determined not to. He has a direct line to the special set of ganglia in what some charitably call our brain. When we watch him perform, we become like a monkey on crack — or more like a monkey on crack than normal.
The May 21, 2009 on-line edition of the journal 
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