You can watch FULL episodes of Masters of Illusion at the below link.

myNetworkTV Video Player.

This is cool since we don’t even get myNetwork TV up in Canada. Woohoo!

Thanks to Tim Ellis over at magic unlimited for the link.

One of my favorite magical groups is Mark Kalin and Jinger Leigh. In my last post I mentioned the Calgary PCAM magic convention, and that’s where I also saw Mark Kalin and Jinger perform during the evening gala show. Their performance was simply the best live magic I’ve ever seen. The below clip is a great example of their work. I saw this illusion live, but I believe that when I saw it was a little different. It looks like they’ve made some improvements to it as well.

Over at the Magic Newswire they posted an hour long podcast with Kalin and Jinger, and I encourage any magicians to check it out.

Lee Asher is a brilliant magician who created the famous “Asher Twist” as seen below.

I got a chance to meet him at the Calgary PCAM magic convention where I got to see his lecture, as well as see him do some casual close-up in the hospitality room. Lee Asher sent me an email the other day letting me know that he’s setup a new magic video website called MagicVideoBlog.com. It looks like its going to be updated regularly with clips of old school magicians performing the classics before they were classics.

I’ve already added it to my blog and already dug through whats there of the archives so far. There’s some really great footage in there. I hope Lee updates the site regularly, it looks really neat.

Here’s a sample clip of the type of stuff you can see on the site:

I love graphic design, and I love magic, so naturally I’d love old magic posters. A gentlemen that I know in the local business community had an interest in magic and especially Houdini, and he gave me some of his collection. There was a copy of a Houdini painting, along with a whole bunch of copies of old magic posters. The pages came from a book originally, but all of the below pages were just torn out of it. I have no idea what the original book was unfortunately. Does anyone know?

Some of them are really fantastic though. I’m going to see about framing a few of them and hanging them up in my office. If you go to my facebook album, you can see all of the posters.

Naturally I recognize some of the names, but there’s a bunch that I’ve never heard of before.

This week is National Fire Prevention Week (Oct 5-11th) and I was invited to perform at the Kelowna Fire Hall for the “Fire Chief for a Day” event. 50 kids from different schools across the Okanagan and their parents came to the Kelowna Fire Hall on October 8 for activities. For the show I was requested to include some special fire prevention related magic. During the show I showed all the kids a Smoke Alarm, and had the fire card put into one of 4 envelopes. The other 3 had just blank paper. One by one I put the envelopes on the Smoke Alarm to see if it could find the fire. Finally the Smoke Alarm being to ring as it had found the fire!

At the event they did a live fire demonstration showing how fast a fire can spread in your house. I had no idea that by the time the smoke alarm goes off you only have 2 minutes to get out of your house.

Home Fire Safety Tips – Half of these I had never even heard of before I did my research!

• More than half of all fatal home fires happen at night while people are asleep. Smoke detectors sound an alarm when a fire starts, waking people before they are trapped or overcome by smoke. With smoke detectors your risk of dying in a home fire is cut nearly in half.
• Install smoke detectors outside every sleeping area and on every level of your home, including the basement. Follow installation instructions carefully, and test smoke detectors monthly. Change all smoke detector batteries at least once a year. If your detector is more than 10 years old, replace it with a new one.
• Smoke alarms should be tested and maintained in accordance with manufacturer’s instructions. Alarms should be tested once a month by pushing the test button and listening for the alarm.
• For battery operated smoke alarms, replace batteries at least once a year or for extended life batteries according to manufacturer’s instructions. Batteries should also be replaced when the smoke alarm makes a chirping sound.
• Smoke alarms should be cleaned, at least once every six months, by gently vacuuming the exterior.
• Smoke alarms do wear out and should be replaced at least every 10 years.

The infamous “Magic’s Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed” has a new season that began just a few weeks ago.

The original five episodes composed the first “season”, the first four coming out in 1997/1998 and the fifth coming out in 2005. Magicians all over Canada and the USA quickly took classics out of their show like the ZigZag girl and the Metamorphosis. Fortunately for us magicians, the show was pretty boring to watch and laymen quickly forgot which tricks were exposed. The “Masked Magician” was later found out to be Val Valentino. In this new season Val Valentino is seen in the credits as the producer of the show. The Magician seems to be somebody else from what I can gather.

The format of the show is the same as the original. The Masked Magician shows you an effect stripped down to the bare mechanics void of any presentation while the narrator explains the effect in a monotone voice along with cheesy jokes. Then the Masked Magician exposes the effect in the same lackluster way as the trick was presented in the first place. And, you guessed it, cheesy narration throughout the explanation as well.

Tricks exposed:
• Walking through a giant wall of steel (Copperfields Great Wall of China Illusion)
• Buzz saw (David’s again)
• Turning a Bentley into a Lamborghini (Criss Angel)
• Making a soda can float (TT with suction cup.. wth?)
• Pushing a coin through a rubber sheet into a glass (Ha!)
• Vanishing a toothpick (Same trick Criss has exposed and taught on many talk shows)
• Cap penetrating a glass bottle (PK ring)
• Cut and restored rope (Extra piece method)
• Vanishing a string quartet
• Vanishing woman (Using a chair)

I found it hilarious that they included vanishing a toothpick and cut and restored rope in the show. As if vanishing a toothpick is one of Magic’s Biggest Secrets. Although my girlfriend watched the show with me and was excited to finally learn how I cut and restore a rope. She was very disappointed when the secret was revealed though. Not because she finally knew, but because she knew that the method that was exposed isn’t what I do in my routine.

During the show they never say who performed the original version. During the exposure for the “Walking through a wall of steel” they never say “Walking through the Great Wall of China” but they infer it in basically every way imaginable.

Magic is really boring when there’s no presentation and the method is exposed two seconds later. I’m sure these new episodes will have the same effect as the old episodes, they’ll quickly vanish and be forgotten.

There’s a new movie that just came out called “Women In Boxes“. I remember hearing about it a long time ago, and it looks like its finally out. It seems its also won a bunch of awards as well.

You can view the movie trailer by going to : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_dfrpRveSo (Sorry they disabled embedding!)

For $23 bucks you can buy the movie.

Has anybody seen it? Post below.

The location for the PCAM 2009 convention has been announced.

Time and PlaceStart Time:
Monday, September 21, 2009 at 12:00pm
End Time:
Saturday, September 26, 2009 at 11:55pm
Location:
Sailing from Vancouver, BC to Los Angeles, CA
City/Town:
Vancouver, BC
Contact InfoEmail:
shawn@magichampion.com

The PCAM continues the tradition of holding the “biggest little convention” in the world on board the NCL cruise ship: Norweigan Pearl. Shawn Farquhar is your host for this amazing event full of exceptional talent (as always).

OK! I want to join you for PCAM 2009 … what do I do?

1) Call and book your cruise 1st. Cabins are limited and are available outside our group to the local public so book your cabin NOW! (Also – the cut off date is fast approaching!)

Merit Travel
1- 800-409-1711 (ext 2)
Janice Dalziel
250-412-8260
Janice.Dalziel@merit.ca

2) After you have your cabin booked through our Official Travel Agent then you can register for PCAM by visiting http://www.magicatsea.com and paying with PayPal. If you don’t want to use PayPal you can send a cheque, made payable to Shawn Farquhar (address also on www.magicatsea.com).

3) Consider booking your return from Los Angeles in the afternoon or evening of Sunday, September 27th. It is my intention to offer a special extra event which will be to either the Magic Castle or Magicopolis for the Saturday evening.

4) Tell your friends your going to be a part of the coolest magic / cruise ever!

For more information goto http://www.magicatsea.com/pcam2009.html

Well I pretty much thought about David Blaine’s Dive of Death all day today. I’ve had many conversations with people about what they thought of the special, including the magic tricks, the bullet catch, the endurance stunt, and ultimately the “dive of death”. Opinions seem to be all over the place.

The thing I love about David Bline’s work is that its such a great conversation piece. Love him or hate him, everyone’s talking about it. If he’s in a glass bubble holding his breath, sealed in a block of ice, or hanging upside down people talk about it weather they love it, hate it, or just think its pointless.

I think David is a true showman, and artist. After all, isn’t all art subject to the same critique? Some will love it, some will hate it, and others couldn’t care less. It can be music, dance, painting, magic, or endurance challenges.

I feel sorry for him that his “Dive of Death” didn’t work as planned, but that’s the nature of attempting an untested stunt on Live TV. You’ve got to respect that fact that he went ahead with it even though he knew there was a chance it wouldn’t look right. He took the risk and failed. People that were at the event starting booing him. You can see it on youtube clips from people who were at the live event.

At least he didn’t resort to pre-recorded footage and pass it off as “live” like others have done recently.

One thing is for sure though. His name will forever be in the books alongside David Copperfield, Penn and Teller, and Houdini. I’m sure he’ll use that moment as motivation to succeed in his next challenge.

I hope David goes for the world record of staying up the longest.

Don’t forget about the “David Blaine: Dive of Death” tomorrow(September 24th, which may be today by the time you read this) on ABC. (9:00-11:00 p.m., ET) Its going to be broadcast in HighDef too, Yum. There’s going to be lots of pre-recorded magic in this episode, so I’m really looking forward to see what David and his team have come up with. Daniel Garcia was working on the project with him so you know its going to be good.

It looks like the product hype is already in full swing. Ellusionist, The Vanishing Rabbit, and T11 are all going to be doing special David Blaine product releases right after the show airs.

I had heard that “Cards as Weapons” by Ricky Jay was a valuable book before, but I never knew that it was worth in the $200-400 range. I’ve got a copy of that book sitting in a box downstairs that I got a long time ago. I don’t remember what type of condition its in though. I think I’ll hold onto the book though, if its worth that much now, it will only increase in value

Ricky Jay is so unique, his performance is brilliant.

Public Shows
Rock Creek and Boundary Fair Associationl
Rock Creek BC – Sept 13 & 14

“Located in south central British Columbia’s Boundary Country, amongst the sun drenched mountains of the beautiful Kettle River Valley, The Rock Creek and Boundary Fall Fair is one of the last “true” country fairs. It is commonly referred to as “The biggest little country fair around”. Bring the whole family to our exhibition for a fun filled two day experience.”

On September 13th I’ll be performing some mingling magic in the early afternoon, and a stage show at 2:30PM on the Main Stage.

More information about the festival can be found at:
http://www.rockcreekfallfair.ca/index.htm

Inspired by Las Vegas

Where do magicians go to get inspired? Las Vegas of course! The magic hub of the world.

I went down to Las Vegas recently with my girlfriend on Vacation for 11 days where we saw 9 different magic shows. I was able to meet up with my magic teacher Jeff McBride as well as some of the other top magicians in the world.

[ Left: Myself with my Magic Teacher Master Magician Jeff McBride,
Middle: Me with Teller of "Penn and Teller" fame
Right: Me with Criss Angel from A&E's "Mindfreak"]

If you ever plan a trip to Las Vegas don’t forget to plan to see lots of shows. The top shows I would reccomend to go see are Lance Burton, Jeff McBride, Penn and Teller, and Cirque du Soleil “O”. I’m pretty sure the show we saw David Copperfield perform at the MGM Grand will be very similar, to the show he will be performing when he comes to Kelowna.

Of course I took the opportunity to perform some street magic while I was in Vegas. Below is a photo of me performing for a street vendor on Fremont Street (That’s the street with the canopy that has the colorful lightshows).

[ Metal Bending: Fremont Steet - Las Vegas, NV ]

Vegas is an amazing place and I can’t wait to go back!

Telephone number trick
Try it

Use your phone number – 7 digits, do not use the area code – and see what you get

1. Multiply the first 3 digits ( not area code) by 80
2. Add 1
3. Multiply by 250
4. Add the last 4 digits of your number
5. Add the last 4 digits of your number again.
6. Subtract 250
7. Divide by 2

Neat eh?

Magical Christmas Parties

Christmas is just 107 days away, but who’s counting? It may seem like a long time away still but many organizations and companies have already begun planning for their Christmas party. For dates in November and December I usually book three months in advance!

If you or anybody you know is looking to book entertainment for their Christmas party now is the time to reserve the date. To reserve a date and time for your Christmas party call Ali K. Zam at 250.575.SHOW(7469) to receive your free quote.

Magical Quote:

“Magic is believing in yourself. If you can do that, you can make anything happen.”

– Foka Gomez