Magician Burton S. Sperber passed away last Friday at the age of 82 of complications from surgery at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California.
He was not only an accomplished performer and lover of all things Magic, he was also the founder and chairman of the nation’s largest landscape services company, ValleyCrest Landscape Cos.
The Magic Castle and Inner Magic Circle member turned $700.00 into a company that today boasts more than 150 locations around the world, with 9,000 employees and nearly $835 million in annual revenue. The transformation was performed not by magic but his tireless work and keen business sense. He purchased the nursery business from the widow of the owner. He was just 19 years-old.
ValleyCrest Landscape worked some of the most prestigious projects in the landscape milieu including the Bellagio in Las Vegas, Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Florida, Newport Beach’s Fashion Island and Dallas Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas. He preferred the title “Head Gardner” to CEO or “Boss.”
“Work is something you don’t want to do,” Mr. Sperber told the Los Angeles Times this year. “I love doing what I do, and there’s nothing else in this life that I’d rather do.”
Landscaping was not his sole passion. His love for performing, watching, learning, teaching, inventing, sharing and chronicling Magic was evident always.
Mr. Sperber owned one of the largest magic book collections – with texts from the early 16th century. His passion for our craft covered the spectrum from collector and preserver of classic magic books to inventing his own effects. Nick Lewin posted a great story about meeting Mr. Sperber aboard a cruise ship and learning card effects from this remarkable man. You can read Mr. Lewin’s post here.
“Believe it or not, I am actually better known in the world of magic than I am in the landscape world,” he said in a 2008 interview with C-Suite Quarterly business magazine. We can vouch for the truth of this statement. Continue reading Magician Burt Sperber Passes
How does a magician and/or mentalist top a great five week engagement at Dublin’s beautifully appointed Olympia Theatre (“theater”)?
Good question, that.
We asked a random sample of passers-by outside the Inside Magic editorial offices here in Mystic Hollow, Michigan. Fortunately, the folks in this town know magic and magicians. The question would make no sense otherwise.
Two of the twelve thought he should take over for Criss Angel in Las Vegas. They were all of the opinion that Criss Angel has too much going on and that he needed to have a steady guest star.
A woman who describes herself as Criss Angel’s Number One Fan said she has seen the show five times and is not sure the Mindfreak Magician can keep it up. “It is not an easy show to do and he’s got a lot going on so something is going to have to give.”
She knew of Keith Barry from his incredible television series here in the US. on the Discovery Channel. She raved about his work in the police station (the fourth episode titled “Cops and Robbers“).
One woman thought Keith Barry should perform at Victoria and Albert Hall in London. She said the believed it was the equivalent of our Carnegie Hall. Her friend corrected her that it was actually called The Royal Albert Hall and was built by his widow, Victoria. Regardless, the first woman maintained, Mr. Barry would be perfect for such a “dignified setting.”
There were a smattering of non-statistically significant suggestions that we have left out.
It turns out, Keith Barry will be back in theater (theatre in metric languages) with his killer show, Keith Barry – Eight Deadly Sins.
Not Actual Photo of Criss Angel and Fiance Due to Copyright Restrictions
Magician Criss Angel popped the question to girlfriend Sandra Gonzalez last week. The two were taking some time off in beautiful Cabo San Lucas (a regular stop on ABC Television’s The Love Boat) at the time.
The magician’s public relations team describe the young couple as “ecstatic.”
The couple had just finished dinner whilst gazing upon the setting sun when Criss Angel bestowed upon Miss Gonzalez a subtle but symbolic piece of jewelry: a 5-carat princess-cut diamond on a platinum band. As one would expect, Criss Angel co-designed the token of affection.
The illusionist and star of Las Vegas’ Believe apparently anticipated an affirmative response to his life-changing question. He arranged for Miss Gonzalez’ family to join them immediately after she accepted the proposal. The public relations team also inform reporters all was capped with “fireworks began blasting overhead.”
Here is the Inside Magic strange quote of the week. It comes from E!’s story on the proposal:
This will be Angel’s second marriage, his first having ended in 2006 after four years and one instance of the husband being buried alive. He also dated Holly Madison for awhile.
We are not sure what the author intended by the two sentences. Actually, we’re puzzled over the “his first having ended in 2006 after four years and one instance of the husband being buried alive.”
It could be this is a clever use of metaphor or a literal use of public relations hyperbole or neither or both.
The Holly Madison bit is thrown in to confuse and confound – to ensure readers will not easily understand whether the “buried alive” statement is fanciful language or a description of an illusion Criss Angel performed about the same time as he was dating Playboy Playmate Holly Madison and performing an endurance stunt in public.
Regardless, we wish the young couple the best of luck. We will keep Inside Magic readers apprised of developments and wedding date scheduling.
The article reads like a Criss Angel press release but it is a bona fide piece written by a real journalist. The news? Criss Angel is going to sell some of his cars and motorcycles at the prestigious Barrett-Jackson collector-car auction in Las Vegas.
All of the vehicles will have appeared in the Mindfreak television series. Criss Angel’s brother has bundled one of his vehicles with the lot.
“Each of these vehicles is a star in its own right,” JD said. “The key is that each vehicle has appeared on Mindfreak multiple media specials and TV shows, car shows and displays at the casinos.”
Criss Angel and his two brothers, JD and Costa own nearly 100 cars and motorcycles. According to the article, the Vegas illusionist is offering his speciality ‘Mindfreak’ Hummer H2 replete with “Houdini-inspired custom features.” We don’t know what that means. Perhaps the door locks need a key or a pick to open – even if you are inside at the time.
We thought about the concept of a mini-tank being inspired by Houdini and suddenly something stirred or just fell over in our addled brain’s memory ganglia. We recalled a press release from way back in 2006 – 2007 announcing the birth of the new show car.
“This completely custom Hummer H2 project was conceived in the dark spirit of Criss Angel’s A&E series “Mindfreak. The closer you get to this show vehicle, the more magical things you’ll find.” adds Alden Stiefel, “Original artifacts from Houdini’s era were discretely added into the Mindfreak Hummer’s design features. Hollywood’s famous Magic Castle, and New York City’s Martinka Magic Shop, once owned by Harry Houdini, supplied many of these magic props. Maxxsonics & RealWheels plan to share this magic vehicle with others, by making this captivating Hummer H2 available at events country-wide over the next 18-24 months. Continue reading Criss Angel to Auction Custom Magic Autos
Penn Jillette is a gifted and entertaining writer of things magic and otherwise. We have reviewed his written work on this unworthy magic web site in the past and we’ll have a review of his newest book, God, No! Signs You May Already be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales next week.
Mr. Jillette could probably write a pretty decent Magic for Beginners book and teach basic sleights effectively. But that’s not how he chooses to use his remarkable talent. Like his silent partner, Teller, Mr. Jillette uses magic as a device or tool to offer his unique and usually correct perspective (from our point o’ view) of the topic or issue he has chosen to explain.
His writing seems effortless and spontaneous. We would like to think that style is a result of thousands of drafts, re-writes, third-party editing, and gut-wrenching revisions.
We presume, however, his writing style reflects his true persona. We don’t have that gift. In fact, the sentence, “We don’t have that gift” took two and a half hours to craft. We began with “we not as good as he is at writing that way,” worked our way towards “he is better at writing than speaking and he is very good at speaking too,” and finally “We don’t have that same ability that he, Penn Jillette has.”
Our point? We like Penn Jillette’s writing.
In fact, we are not ashamed to say we would marry his writing if such a thing were possible. We don’t know if that makes us gay for wanting to marry the writing style of a man, but if it does, we’ll take those slings and arrows and make lemonade served in slings with arrows for stirrers. Continue reading Penn Jillette: Card Trick as Rhetorical Tool
Magician Burton S. Sperber passed away last Friday at the age of 82 of complications from surgery at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California.
How does a magician and/or mentalist top
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