magic is about honesty
everything here is true
except for the bits I made up
The extremely popular YouTube channel Numberphile (popular among nerds at least), they often tread into magical territory. Here one of their frequent guests Tadashi, explains an amusing technique for levitating a pingpong ball (and the physics behind it.)
When I was the host of Magic Tonight in Toronto, the comedy magician extraordinaire Wes Zaharuk used to use this as a bit in his show to great effect:
Wes Zaharuk
This is not a serious post. This weekend, I was at and met someone who was a fan of magic. I showed him a trick and he showed me one. If it were a contest to see who was stranger, he won.
One of my heroes in magic is the world-renowned Spanish magician Juan Tamariz. Like the famous Canadian magician Dai Vernon, who came to be known in his later years as "The Professor", he is often referred to simply as "The Maestro". He's one of the field's top thinkers and a uniquely captivating performer. Now in his seventies, he still performs and can still summon reserves of energy that make it appear as though 52% of his blood is caffeine. (Even though he once told me at dinner that he has only had a single cup of coffee in his life.)
Through my work with Magicana, I had the opportunity to spend a great deal of time with Juan — metaphorically speaking. In 1992-3, he hosted a program on Spanish television called Chan-tatachán. (As near as I can tell, it's a nonsense word similar to "Abracadabra".) He not only performed himself, but had guests performing magic close-up and on stage, which included some of the most notable performers of the era.
I got to digitize, edit and index about eighteen hours of performances for The Screening Room, a free online video repository of magic performances. The collection was finally published earlier today, ready to be watched and enjoyed:
Unfortunately, most of the content is in Spanish. However, I've found that many of the performers are capable of transcending the language barrier. Though I will admit, that it's only because I know these magicians by reputation that I'm willing to sit through pre-ambles I don't quite understand to get to the magic I fully expect to enjoy.
Having already watched the entire collection, I'll pull out a few favourites that might appeal to an English-speaking audience.
This one is in English. David Williamson is one of America's finest comedy magicians. Here he presents a version of "The Cups and Balls" that had me laughing out loud when I first stumbled across the clip.
This trick is performed silently (admittedly to some rather awkwardly placed Michael Jackson music) so no Spanish required. It combines one of the great classic illusions of balancing an assistant on top of a pole, suspended in midair, along with a strange construction of a newspaper tree. The trick keeps going getting more and more astonishing along the way.
Finally "Mentalism" is more a comedy sketch than a magic trick (although the magic is baffling) featuring Juan and a French magician, Gaëtan Bloom. Bloom is speaking French so if, like me, you took French in school, you understand just enough to know that when he says, "Il sagit d'un tour de mentalisme," that nothing could be further from the truth.
If forced to name the greatest human named Stephen, Stephen Fry has to be somewhere near the top of the list. Eloquent and witty with an unparalleled love of of both language and learning.
He has a new podcast called Great Leap Years - The Stories Behind Inventions. Specifically he's focused around inventions related to communication and information technology. It starts at the beginning with the development of language. If you're unfamiliar with the intense verbal tango that is listening to Stephen Fry, here's a sample of what you're in for:
“You may know that I’ve had a lifelong interest in technology but you should understand too, I am not a scientist, technologist, engineer of hardware or software by training nor talent. It takes me a long time to understand scientific ideas simply because they’re nearly always founded in the abstractions of mathematics and I, since childhood, had an attitude to numbers that approximates my attitude to tigers: they are, to be sure, beautiful beyond words, magnificent, strange, fascinating, powerful. But they fill me with awe, fear, a deep sense of inadequacy, and a presentiment that unless I run away, I will wet myself.”
The podcast is available through his website, but also through Apple Podcasts and quite free to enjoy. As far as I'm concerned, the episodes can't come out fast enough.
h/t @pennjillette
It's everything I love all in one place:
A math game about Wizards (it's some kind of cross between Rock Paper Scissors and Dungeons and Dragons) where all the characters are named after physicists and the magic wands are named after mathematicians.
#nerdheaven
The UK-based YouTube channel Quirkology has made a regular series of these "Amazing Bets You Will Always Win". It demonstrates, in a fun way, one of the most important principles of magic: how smart you are is often less important than what you know.
It's a nice way to have a little bit of fun on a Monday afternoon.
