Impossible Motion
An optical treat! Watch the above video to experience the joy of defying gravity without actually having to do so. Perhaps this would make an interesting large scale playground illusion?
Michael Moschen at the Skirball Center
Some of the Conjuring Arts staff and volunteers were very privileged to witness a performance by Michael Moschen last Saturday when he performed at the NYU Skirball Center. For those that don’t know him, he is a stupendously creative juggler and artist. We were very impressed with the show which featured a number of juggling feats and visual surprises combined with insight from Mr. Moschen into his creative process and other aspects of his unique performance.
He began his routine by juggling some white balls in a variety of forms and fashions, switching to colored balls so the audience could participate and watch certain colors and ascertain the balls progress as they traveled. It was fun to try and keep up with the various colors. Then he had us perform a dexterous motion with our fingers, which transformed into a demonstration of contact juggling, and we were all thrilled when the motion we had been making proved to be part of the routine.
One of the highlights was his routine with sticks. He started out manipulating a single shining stick. It was marvelous how the light bounced off the stick as it went through its routine. The piece progressed with more sticks and more stunning feats, etc. Mr. Moschen also included a performance of the Triangle which is a fascinating sequence of juggling utilizing a giant triangle in the center of the stage. It was used as a surface to develop a myriad of paths for the balls to take before returning to his hands and also as a sounding board; creating a rich routine both visually and audibly.
One of the pieces was on balance and cheating. He related that balance is a conversation between you and the top of the object demonstrating this with a long stick. When the top moved one way or the other, he had a certain amount of time to respond and regain balance in order to continue the conversation. Of course, the conversation plays out much faster with shorter objects, so Mr. Moschen demonstrated his ability to balance a pencil on his head! This led to a discussion of cheating wherein he explained how gripping the object in any way when learning to balance stifles your ability when you try to balance an object elsewhere on the body. Like magic, for the most part, in juggling you are on your own, and it is up to you to decide whether to learn it the right way or take shortcuts which may hamper your ability in the future.
The performance was fascinating, and Mr. Moschen’s skill is astounding, however, some of the best parts were his thoughts on the different routines he was doing. He seemed quite candid and, at the end of the show, allowed some time for a question and answer session. We were quite pleased that someone asked him about his practice regimen and he said, “I practice four hours in the morning and four hours in the evening”. That is eight hours of practice a day! We had better get to work.
Learn more at Michael Moschen’s website and also check out his TED talk.
3 Year Old Tightrope Walker
A 3 year old girl walks across a tightrope stretched over an enclosure containing six Siberian tigers. When asked if she likes tightrope walking, she said, “Yes, because I started at a very young age”. Rumor has it that next year they will be featuring a 4 year old tightrope walker.
Robot Magicians?
This is amazing! A robot hand that can grab, throw, catch, dribble, tie knots, spin pens, etc. How long will it be before we can watch a robot expertly perform the whole calendar of sleights in Erdnase? Will sleights of the future be developed on the computer and available for download onto our robot hands? Will practice become obsolete? Exciting and interesting times are at hand, literally.
Learn more about this here.
Stevie Starr: The Regurgitator
Stevie Starr’s performance at F.I.S.M. 2006 in Stockholm, Sweden was one of the highlights of this grand event. While not presented as magic, Mr. Starr’s performances have a lot in common with our art, and he is certainly a very entertaining performer. The clip featured here is from The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and offers a couple of Mr. Starr’s astounding feats of sleight of stomach.
Zipcode Man
Street performer David Rosdeitcher has developed a most unusual talent. He has committed ZIP codes and their associated locales to memory and can tell you instantly where you are from when given the ZIP code. His initial street performing talent was juggling, and he developed the ZIP code memory feat when he moved to Boulder, Colorado, and found, since there were already some very talented jugglers performing in the area, he needed something new to help set him apart from the other entertainers.
Mr. Rosdeitcher’s earlier street performing had brought him to many different towns around the United States, and he was able to use his knowledge of the landscape to help him remember all the different ZIP codes, aided by the fact that they do have some logic to the way they are designated, i.e. the numbers start low on the East Coast and get higher as you move West. As the act proved successful, he started spending more and more time memorizing ZIP codes as well as pertinent facts about each location. Mr. Rosdeitcher has also taken to traveling abroad in order to expand his repertoire and currently can even perform the feat with many foreign countries’ postal codes and even say something in the person’s native language!
Our director, Bill Kalush, was on hand to witness one of Mr. Rosdeitcher’s performances. Bill was sure that he was going to see the Zipcode Man stumped, as he was in the company of Lennart Green, one of the premier masters of magic in the known and unknown universe and also a resident of Sweden. Both were shocked when Mr. Rosdeitcher, immediately upon hearing Lennart’s ZIP code, correctly guessed the magician’s place of residence (Gothenburg).
If you are interested in learning more about Zipcode Man, check out the interview he did with NPR (transcript available here): NPR Interview
Winston the Water Fountain
Here we have a young man performing a feat of water spouting on par with the Bellagio’s fountains! Okay, maybe not quite, but just as impressive considering the considerable differences in technological requirements. He showcases his novel ability in a couple of splendid feats including a complete brushing of his teeth, sans sink and faucet.
Sleight of Sand
A surprisingly beautiful demonstration of the esoteric art of sand painting by Kseniya Simonova, performed for Ukraine’s Got Talent. It’s a wonderful piece fluid and graceful. The morphing of one image into the next can be startling and rather magical. In fact, sand painting and magic share some history, as there have been numerous performers who featured both in their acts.
One of these was S. S. Henry, known for his “Vanishing Goat”, who, in addition to sand painting and magic, featured rag painting, smoke pictures, and chalk cartoons. Incidentally, Henry taught sand painting to Melba Dew, wife of magician Danny Dew, and the two of them performed an act together showcasing both of their talents.
For those of you that are interested, and can travel through time, here is an Abbott’s advertisement from the Sphinx purporting to give all the secrets away for just $3! (click image)
The Sound of the Voice
Greetings from Conjuring Arts! Our intrepid internet explorer, Steve Cuiffo, recently discovered that some other people, scientists, have discovered a way to levitate objects: with sound. Watch the fascinating video here or read the article first at: Acoustic Levitation.
Conjuring Arts Tries to Fill Steve Forte’s Shoes!
As many of you may have heard, Mr. Steve Forte recently put a large portion of his collection up for sale and auction. We managed to acquire several salient pieces which we have assembled at the Research Center and are exceptionally excited about. One item that particularly stands out is a pair of boots used for counting cards in the game of blackjack.
These boots allow the user to code the values of the cards that appear during the game through the use of the toes! As the cards are depleted, the user can receive information pertaining to the upcoming cards and bet accordingly. This can result in a considerable advantage. One can only hope that Nike will soon put out their own version of Nike Air Steve’s for public consumption. Can you imagine the commercial?
