Online Magician Bloggers Directory

If there are musicians, food critics, travellers, journalist and some other who love to blog…there are also MAGICIANS who love to BLOG.

Newsodrome shows you the most interesting news in your areas of interest. News that matter to you. And it will do that in your familiar, uncluttered newspaper format. Interested in Cars? Fashion? Video games in general or specifically in Wii? is your favorite sport Baseball or is it Yoga? want the latest in Python development or the latest buzz about Knitting? you can get it all at Newsodrome, up-to-date and from the best online sources. ~newsdrome.com

If you are a magician blogger or perhaps a magic enthusiast who wants to know more about magic directly from the magicians’ mouth you can check out the magic directory at Newsdrome by clicking here.

Online Memorial for Ali Bongo

Just recently last March 8, 2009 one of the pilars of magic, Ali Bongo (President of Magic Circle) passed away. He lived a remarkable life as a magician, a friend and an inspiration to all magicians worldwide.

Ali Bongo (8 December 1929 – 8 March 2009) was a British comedy magician, and president of The Magic Circle who performed an act in which he was known as the “Shriek of Araby”.

ALI BONGO

picture from telegraph.co.uk 

Walkaround ideas – starting a performance

I have been promoting close up magic ever since I started on the conjuring art. Whenever I was hired to perform for a huge party or a corporate event I always offer a walkaround performance simply because I’m not into Stage Magic yet.

First let’s define close up magic. Close Up Magic is a type of performance where you do magic close to the spectators or just in front of them. There are no elaborate props, assistants, smokes, light effects and tigers; its just the magician and the audience.

Whenever you’re in a corporate event its a good idea if the people there don’t know each other or perhaps on the process of knowing other attendees because it would be easier for you to crash into the conversation and start your magic right away. Another thing is that, since no one knows no one, they would be eager to have somebody talk to them thus making it easier for you to start performing your magic to the guests.

Video of the Week – Tommy Wonder’s Cups & Balls

I love going back to the classics of magic for inspiration and amazement. The cups and balls in many accounts say it is by far the oldest recorded magic feat history. Here’s Tommy Wonder’s version of this wonderful work of magic. Enjoy!

Why hiring cheap magicians is not always the best deal by Leodini

Here is an article from Leodini of Inner Magic Club (an elite organization of magicians in the country). He gladly permitted me to post his article on my blog since I consider this an eye opener to people who are planning to hire a magician and to magicians as well. This is very informative and very helpful both to audiences and magicians alike.

Here’s the content:

A birthday party celebration is a live show. When something bad or unexpected happens, one can’t rewind the flow of events and start over. One can only scramble and find ways to remedy the situation. The more experienced the help one gets, the more professional the entertainer he has hired, the better are the chances of salvaging the party from a bad situation.Dependability is one factor that a parent should consider when hiring a magician to entertain at his/her child’s birthday.

The final bow of Siegfried and Roy?

Siegfried and Roy were considered Titans of illusions, the two incorporated their shows with surreal stage, sophisticiated stagecraft, theatrical wonder and of course TIGERS.

Last 2005, half of the magical duo’s life was put in danger when the  tiger caught Roy Horn by the neck and dragged him off stage. People in the industry thought that he will not be able to speak or walk after the tragic incident. The two struggled as Roy Horn recovers and soon enough he was able to walk.

 picture taken from www.tripandom.com

Last February 28, 2009 they performed in front of a live audience in Las Vegas with the same tiger that almost ended Roy’s life.

Healing of Magic

Reading upon the title one might think that I mistakenly interchanged the two terms. I heard about this from Swirve Elfstone (a fellow magician here in Gensan) while we were talking about Copperfield and his charity works. It was just recently that I looked it up over the net and was able to gain a handful information regarding the use of magic in healing. Being a nurse, the idea of using magic in healing is a blast. I thought magic can be used in patients to simply entertain them and lighten up their emotional struggles but after reading the articles I realized that magic can also be used in physical healing (I am not referring to the mystical healing stuff or the white magic some might think of).

Magic Therapy as they call it is focused on helping physically challenged individuals (e.g. deficient motor skills such as inability to hold an object using the hands, those who have poor hand and eye coordination and more). But the therapy is not limited to only patients with motor problems but also those who have cognitive  and personality problems such as ADHD and so on.

HEALING OF MAGIC is a carefully designed, systematic approach to the therapeutic use of simple magic tricks in physical and psychosocial rehabilitation. It is a viable treatment modality that continues to gain wide-spread support from therapists and health care professionals around the world. – magictherapy.com

Featured Magician of March – Max Malini

Max Malini

(October 3, 1875- October 3,1942)

Max Malini was born Max Katz Breit in the small town of Ostrov on the borders of Poland and Austria in 1873. At a young age, he emigrated to America with his family, settling in New York City.

As early as twelve, he was already circulating in the rough-and-tumble world of Bowery saloons, where he busked for coins and developed his legendary “moxie”.

Despite having hands that were famously too small to entirely cover a card (and thus seemingly unable to secretly “palm” a card, which sounds like a difficult disadvantage for an aspiring magician to overcome) he perfected the use of timing, misdirection, advance preparation, and personally ideosyncratic sleight-of-hand techniques to the point that he became known around the world for performing seeming miracles.

Malini is acknowledged as perhaps the all-time master of impromptu magic. Tales of his unexpected exploits in bars and restaurants are the stuff of legend. He had the impishness to plan ahead, and the unshakable patience to wait for the best, most-uncanny moment to perform tricks which, when so expertly set up and timed, seemed to his mystified onlookers like miracles out of nowhere.

(picture taken from www.geniimagazine.com)