Escape Artist Gunnarson Takes Australia by Storm

Inside Magic Image of Dean Gunnarson Chained to High Speed Roller Coaster Track - An Escape that Nearly Took his  LifeAccording to press accounts, this is Inside Magic Favorite ’s first tour of Australia and judging from the favorable press, it will certainly not be his last.

But then again, as an with a penchant for pushing the envelope with no concern for paper cuts, Mr. Gunnarson comes harrowingly close to making every performance his last.

Inside Magic readers will no doubt recall Mr. Gunnarson’s near-death experience in China last year.  He was able to free himself of the shackles and came very close to clearing the hurtling roller-coaster and landing safely on a stunt cushion.

Somewhere we heard that Force is equal to Mass times Acceleration.

We don’t know if that is true or if it is just the kooky theories cooked up by the crazy kids in their college classes.

But assuming there is a positive correlation between mass, acceleration and force, a steel framed roller coaster traveling at  62 miles per hour would likely bring a significantly larger force to bear on a human leg than would the human leg impose on said roller coaster.

You can see what happens when little mass and little acceleration meet big mass and big acceleration by visiting the frame-by-frame Zapruder-esque footage of the escape attempt here.
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View-Master, Magic & Lance Burton

Inside Magic Image of Lawrence Leung's Unbelievable Banner AdWe have a GAF View-Master Fetish and we are obsessed with magic.  It is rare (and slightly dangerous) when those two passions collide in one story.  Today is one of those very rare days.

  serves the good people of Australia as skeptic par excellence.  His new six-part series Unbelievable! has been described as “Mythbusters meets Ghostbusters.”

In this weeks episode, the curious host looks to “fool a master magician.”  The advertisement claims he will learn the tricks of the trade from Las Vegas magicians, pickpockets and neuroscientists to create an effect that will fool magicians.

The theme of the show and this week’s episode are sufficiently magic-related to evoke our interest and coverage on this august magic news site.  But what of the GAF View-Master angle, you ask.

Mr. Leung has the ultimate web site design for those of us who could spend hours studying, playing with, and talking about the stereoscopic viewing wonder that we keep in a well-worn leather holster attached to our belt as we type.
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Are Ellis and Webster Evil?

Tim Ellis and Sue-Anne WebsterWe have met and come to know many people in magic and find no discernable correlation between skill and personality.

There are good people with no skill, bad people with great skills, mediocre people with mediocre skills and vice-a-versa, respectively.

Given the broad spectrum of personality types and skill level, we welcome any encounter with anyone professing to enjoy magic. We make no assumptions about their ability or inherent goodness and cannot formulate an opinion about either quality from a single encounter.

Tim Ellis’ first impression is wholly positive. But of course, that could be just first impressions. Maybe he has a deep, dark side we have yet to see. If he does, it must be very, very deep and in a very, very dark place because we have yet to sense even a whiff of its existence.

Additionally, his wife and full-partner Sue-Anne Webster makes a very good first impression without a hint of evil intentions brewing in a dark caldron of her black soul, heated by the unquenchable fires of hell fanned by Lucifer himself. But, then again, it may take more than one meeting to crack the veneer separating the unwholesome, bubbling goo of sin and inhumanity from her public appearance.

But we have met Mr. Ellis and Ms. Webster on several occasions and, as of yet, caught even the slightest aroma of brimstone-fueled depravity or seen the glint of evil in their clear, smiling eyes. In fact, our contemporaneously written records of those meetings indicate they smelled “pleasant” or “nice” 95 percent of the time.

While we agree with the philosophical axiom “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” odds are we should have perceived some indicia of evil, badness, or even not-goodness after a while.

Mr. Ellis is both incredibly talented and a down-right decent person who deeply cares about our craft and has world-class skills and creativity. He is a past winner of national awards in Australia for close-up and stage work and a two-time winner at FISM.

Ms. Webster one of the very few female invitees to the F.F.F.F. Convention, is an Australian National Convention of Magicians Silver and Gold Medalist, and performs with style, grace, and charm.

Our recent periodic check of the INTERPOL database reveals no outstanding wants or warrants for either Mr. Ellis or Ms. Webster for any offense involving firearms or explosives.

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Australian Magician Faces Child Sex Charges

Australian Magician Franky Houdini Charged in Child Sex Cases “Renowned magician and escapologist ” has been charged with 19 counts of “sexual offences against teenage girls”  The Queensland Times reports

The magistrate court took evidence related to Mr. Houdini’s alleged indecent actions involving a 15-year-old.

Mr. Houdini is 35-years-old.

According to the Queensland Times, Mr. Houdini was previously charged with another 19 charges including:  “12 of indecent treatment of a child under 16, two of carnal knowledge and one each of possessing child pornography, making child pornography, procuring a child for sexual acts by false pretence and common assault.”

Mr. Houdini will face these other charges in a separate trial.

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Roberto Giobbi’s Five Volumes of Great Stuff!

Magic Student Resting on Card College Books

We were  first exposed to Roberto Giobbi’s Card College back when we ran a small magic business.

We considered carrying the entire series for sale but even at wholesale, the investment was more than we could swing.

Since we were working on a cash-only basis, we could not afford having expensive inventory on hand.

We bought three of copies of Card College Volume One and sold every one within five days.

The quick sale and high demand actually caused us to think.

We decided to read Card College Volume One.  That mean we had to take it off the shelf and buy it.  We are cheap but apparently more curious than cheap.

We were amazed by Mr. Giobbi’s attention to detail and his innovative epistemological approach.  His method of teaching was so effective that we even learned from the book.  Our ability to learn totally new sleights ended at around 18 years of age.

(Sure, maybe you kept learning new knuckle-busting moves throughout life, but we didn’t.  Agreed, that makes us terrible and not worthy of writing a Magic News Site so sue us).

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