Watch as Ricky Jay faces his greatest challenge ever! In this video, he is forced into the harrowing position of  having to fend off two vapid women while trapped in an elevator. Do a trick Mr. Jay!

Download the podcast here, or listen to it now via the player below.

Ricky Jay is featured in David Mamet’s “Lost Masterpieces of Pornography”, a video on the Funny or Die website. It features June Crenshaw (Kristen Bell) “known as the ‘sex kitten’ of the Supreme Court”. This video may not be safe for work. Cheers!

The Summer 2010 Issue of Gibecière is en route to the presses!

For our spectacular tenth issue, we hear from a familiar voice, welcome a celebrated new contributor, and unearth a centuries-old manuscript that turns the entire timeline of magic history on its ear.

First, Barry Wiley chronicles the remarkable Nellie Bly, considered the first female journalist, and her shrewd exposure of fraudulent supernatural performers in early 20^th Century America.

Next we hear from the prolific Joshua Jay, who gives us a morbidly fascinating catalog of magicians who have met with tragic ends in the pursuit of their art.  Chung Ling Soo’s death is well-chronicled, but these magicians’ stories are equally (and just as eerily) compelling.

Finally, Conjuring Arts has uncovered a 17^th Century Italian manuscript whose contents both shed light on and call into question the timeline of many well-known conjuring tricks.  Lori Pieper once again provides the English translation, and Stephen Minch and William Kalush give context and commentary.

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?

Visit the Gallery

For those that do not know much about Marlo and would like to know more you should definitely check out the new collections being put out by Magic Inc. in Chicago; these are a trilogy of books, two of which have been published so far, Revolutionary Card Technique and Cardially Yours. There are also some video resources, most notably, Prime Time Marlo and It’s all in the Cards. Also I have assembled some interesting articles and tricks, with the help of Ask Alexander, which may be of value to the enthusiast:

One of Marlo’s first publishing efforts was to enter into Tops magazine’s “It’s a Pip” contest. He entered three ideas into the contest, which is not surprising considering the vast creativity he would demonstrate for the rest of his career. Note that he was still using his given name Edward Malkowski with a nickname, “Marko”, which his friends had given him.

It’s a Pip Contest Announcement; Tops Vol. 02 No. 11, November 1937

Entries:

1. “Pip Sucker Gag” by Edward (Marko) Malkowski; Tops Vol. 02 No. 12, December 1937
2. “Pip Card to Wallet” by Edward (Marko) Malkowski; Tops Vol. 03 No. 03, March 1938
3. “Before Your Eyes” by Edward (Marko) Malkowski; Tops Vol. 03 No. 05, May 1938

The following ads represent Marlo’s first attempts to market his material to magician’s. Both of them feature Marlo’s “Double Vanish and Recovery” which is an effect wherein two cards vanish from the deck, then one reappears face up in the middle, and then the face up card is used to locate the other card. Additionally the effect included “Theory of Change, Disappearance and Reappearance” which was an essay featuring the idea that any standard color change could be used to create the effect of a change, a vanish, or a production. The “Casanova Card Trick” utilized the mechanics behind the vanish in “Double Vanish and Recovery” to produce the four Queens. Finally we see “Poor Man’s Trick” in which the performer made a penny travel through his head into a glass and then the penny was placed in the right sleeve only to travel out the left sleeve and into the glass. “Double Vanish and Recovery” and “Casanova Card Trick” are available in Marlo’s book Deck Deception, and the “Poor Man’s Trick” is explained in Bull’s-Eye Coin Tricks. I did not find “Theory of Change, Disappearance and Reappearance” reprinted anywhere, but Sid Lorraine had a copy of it in his files which are available at Conjuring Arts.

Finally, here are some biographical pieces about Marlo.

• “Eddie Marlo as I Know Him” by Frances Ireland; The Linking Ring Vol. 25, No. 11 January 1946.
• “Cardician Marlo” by Frances Ireland; The Linking Ring Vol. 37, No. 4 June 1957.
• “The Amazing Mr. Marlo” by Bill Simon; MUM October 1978.
• “Some Notes on Edward Marlo” by Jon Racherbaumer; MUM October 1978.
• MAGIC Magazine Obituary; MAGIC Magazine Vol. 1, No. 4  1991.
• Linking Ring Obituary; The Linking Ring Vol. 72, No. 01 January 1992.
• MUM Obituary; MUM Vol. 81, No. 09 February 1992.

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.

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.

Learn more here and here.

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.

The first thing you will notice is the new design which was elegantly conceived and created by Dave Buck. Second, you will notice a number of improved functions with regard to the search. These include thumbnail pictures of the book covers next to the results, more results, and, this is the big one, a much faster search! Try it and see, even a search for “Houdini” or other big search term returns the results almost immediately. Third, we have expanded upon the collections idea with a page feature called “My Alex”. Here you can assemble a bookshelf of your favorite books and give them ratings so you can locate them instantly. Additionally, there is a button to repeat your last search or to look at all of your previous searches.

Hopefully these new features will help you find some wonderful new knowledge and improve your magic! Thank you very much to Dan Smith, Dave Buck, and Dan Smith for all of their help in this and future iterations of Alexander. Also, if you have computer skills that may be of help to us, please consider volunteering as we could certainly use the help in making a great tool even better. Happy searching!