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I received an email today and it had a poster for Ted’s new tour show that I hadn’t seen before.

Look! A floating girl! It looks like the rumors are true. I look forward to seeing this one live

Pen and Teller are constantly in the news it seems, and I’ve already talked about them before here on my blog too. last time I posted a video of Tellers performance on Letterman, anyways, the video quality of the version I posted before wasn’t very good. I found a better quality one on youtube, so here it is again for you all. Enjoy!

Ted and Marion Outerbridge are coming back to Kelowna again this year in February at the Rotary Center for the Arts. There will be two shows, one on February 12th that’s a school matinee. The second show will be on February 13th in the evening. Tickets are available from the Rotary Center for the Arts. I don’t know how much tickets cost, but, I saw their show last year and it’s worth whatever the ticket cost is. Also, I heard a secret that they are going to levitate somebody during their show this year! I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I guess we’ll find out together.

Also, if you’re a beginner magician Ted is going to hold a 1 hour magic class. Here is more information:

ATTN: GRADE 7-12 ASPIRING MAGICIANS! VERY SPECIAL OFFER

The Rotary Centre for the Arts is proud to offer a special free magic class for middle and high school students with an interest in magic. Hosted by master magician/ illusionist Ted Outerbridge, this workshop is a one-hour, hands-on clinic that develops skills and increases the magician’s repertoire. It will be held in the boardroom of the RCA from 10 am to 11 am on February 12^th, 2008.

We ask that if you know of students who would be interested in this event, to please pass this information on to them. Registration can be made with the contact person below. In the case of wide appeal, a select few will be chosen from each school. Media will be at the workshop, and may want to interview one or two of the participants on their experience.

The workshop is free; Ted has offered his time before the school matinee at the RCA for no charge. Only thirty students maximum will be admitted, so act quickly.

To register, please contact:

Margaret Gobie

Community Program Coordinator

Rotary Centre for the Arts

421 Cawston Avenue

V1Y 6Z1

Phone: (250) 717-5304 x 111

Also, Each month a bunch of us local magicians get together and talk magic. Anybody who has a serious interest in magic is welcome. For more information on the Okanagan Society of Magician please email me at alikzamnews@gmail.com.

I was delighted to be able to catch Murray Hatfield and Teresa this year during their Canadian Tour of “Magic ‘n Miracles“. They’ve been coming through Kelowna now for the past few years but I haven’t ever been able to make it due to being at my own shows. It was nice to be able to sit back, relax, and enjoy somebody else’s show. I had high expectations- and their performance exceeded it by leaps and bounds.

Each year they bring in new talent from around the world to join in their act. This year they had Juliana Chen, Darcy Oake, and David Kaplan. I know lots about Juliana Chen, and I even met her and saw her perform at the IBM convention a few years back in Calgary Alberta. It was outstanding to see her act once again that she’s been perfecting for all these years. The act she performed was essentially whats in the next two clips. Although, I did notice that she changed the music for the card manipulation part. It seems to suit her as a person much more

I had never heard of the other two performers, David Kaplan and Darcy Oake. Both of them performed very impressive magic, that was well rehearsed, well thought out, and executed perfectly. I expect that these guys both have a very long career in front of them.David Kaplan basically performed a vaudeville clown type routine with non-stop magic and visual gags. The part that blew me away the most is when a bowling ball floated away up into the rafters! The second best part of his act is when later on the bowling ball falls from the rafters onto a precious family air loom. Simply fantastic. Don’t ever a miss a chance to see this guy.

Darcy Oake performed a hip-hop street type dove and manipulation act. His slow style and cool glances to the audience made him instantly likable all the while performing classic effects that had his own spin on them making them new again. Apparently he’s already lectured in Vancouver, and won some awards, so it sounds like he too will be around for the years to come.

All in all, the evening was a great night out and although it doesn’t say anything on the Magic ‘n Miracles official site, I think they’re coming back in March to perform in Vernon. I’m not sure if the entire show will be the same, or if it will be something different… get out there and see their show. You wont be disappointed!

In the October 2007 issue of Magic Magazine there was an article on Erik Buss and something about his spring snake routine. Honestly I skipped past it at first because I had NO idea what they were talking about. The pictures showed some guy (Eric) smiling far too much in a T shirt in front of some weird contraption. I eventually went back and read the article, and still none of it made too much sense.

While reading the Magic Cafe forums I found the video of what the heck the whole article was about, and I’d like to share that with you now.

You may remember a few days ago I made a post talking about magic on the TV show House. I quickly looked online but I couldn’t find out much more information about it. Today my new issue of MAGIC magazine came in. In the “Magic Update” column by Shawn McMaster they had a story about the magic in that episode. It turns out that the sick patient is actually close-up magician of the year Steve Valentine. I couldn’t find any videos of him performing, but there is some clips on his site of his acting.

It also turns out that Tony Clark was the magic consultant for the episode. Tony Clark is amazing and I hope I have the opportunity to meet him one day. Here’s a video I found of him on youtube.

Hey guys, you can find full episodes of Phenomenon online to download at http://www.nbc.com/Phenomenon/video/episodes.shtml

On the final episode all the contestants got a bit of time to show the audience something new. I just found a clip of it that you can download here and see some of the other comments.

I hope you all caught tonight’s final episode of Phenomenon. Tonight they eliminated the rest of the contestants and gave first place to Mike Super along with $250,000. I thought his performance tonight wasn’t as good as the other routines he presented, but it was still very well done. He’s got a great personality and it shines through so well on TV.

Here’s a clip of Mike Super from last week’s episode:

For those of you who know me personally you’ll know that I’m a HUGE fan of the t.v. show House. If you got a chance to see it last night then you’ll know that the patient in last nights episode (S04E08) was a magician who becomes sick while doing the Chinese Water Cell Tortue Escape. I’m sure this episode will re-air again once the season is over, so keep an eye out. I’ve posted some pictures from the episode below.

I’m sure most of you are familiar have heard of Cirque de Soleil before, but never Cirque Sublime. Well, they’ve both have circus type stunts and tricks, along with rhythmic music and dramatic theatrical elements. I don’t think they’re related at all, but they are kind of similar. Maybe in a big city you could find a run of Cirque de Soleil, but not here in the Okanagan Vally. But you WILL find Cirque Sublime! I got myself two tickets for the show in Vernon last Friday and it was great!

All of the tricks were mesmerizing and the whole show was just so well done. I was shocked and surprised by so many of the stunts. I have seen many of them online on youtube and things like that, but its another whole thing to watch it live. If you ever get the chance, go and see it you wont be disappointed.

The pictures weren’t taken by me, but were found online by a fellow who was at the show in Toronto.

The official website for Cirque Sublime has more pictures and more information as well.