This month, Showtime is airing a documentary about Johnny Thompson, one of the most famous magicians of his time. He performed (with wife Pam) as The Great Tomsoni for many years, and then became a mentor for other magicians who needed help devising illusions, figuring out how to make a trick better, or merely sharing […]
John Burbage emails: I have been a long time reader of your blog, and listener to your podcasts. Not too long ago you had a young man on who hosts the Carson Podcast (Mark Malkoff — listen here). Being as how I am 66 years old now, and of the Johnny Carson Show generation, I […]
Lance Burton and Mac King are two of the best magicians I’ve ever seen. I was first introduced to Lance’s work by Penn Jillette, who told me that Lance did the finest close-up routine (Max Maven tells me the preferred term is “stage manipulation”) in the world — high praise from the man who works […]
A few years ago, I saw a Kickstarter campaign for a documentary about magicians. I know a few people in that business and have always enjoyed the work of good illusionists and great sleight-of-hand artists, so I donated some money. The filmmakers, Marcie Hume and Christoph Baaden, spent the next few years following a quartet […]
Professor Richard Wiseman emails: For the past few months we have been working on a secret project involving the science of illusion and invisibility! In the 1920s a magician presented the plans for a strange illusion that he claimed would make people invisible. It’s based on an idea used in modern-day invisibility research and so […]
A couple of years ago, I contributed a few bucks to the Kickstarter campaign for a documentary called “Magicians.” The movie is finally finished and will debut in Los Angeles in a few weeks, then hopefully roll out across the country over the next few months. I haven’t seen the completed film, but here’s the […]