No (fair) Dice

Persi Diaconis is an ex-magician. He left the world of professional magic to become a professor of statistics at Stanford. But those influences are still reflected in his work as many of the simple tools used in the exploration of statistics — coins, cards, dice — are also favourite tools of the magician. So nothing specifically to do with magic, but if you wanted to know how fair your super-complicated D&D dice were.

Watch to the end to get the link to the hidden part 2!

Magic and Martini at SpiritHouse

We've just had the first very well attended show at SpiritHouse in Toronto. Thank you to everyone who came out to enjoy an evening of magic (and fought their way through all of the traffic from the Toronto International Film Festival.)

Photos by David Fulde. 

Magic and Martini continues through November in Toronto and Oakville. Readers of this blog can use the code secrets for a discount on the prices of tickets when purchasing online.

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Mahdi Gilbert - Fool Us

There are a few Canadians appearing on this season of Penn & Teller Fool Us. Mahdi Gilbert is perhaps the most remarkable among them because he performs magic despite being born without hands. As a result, all of the magic he performs is done with techniques he devised himself. Actually, all of the everything he does is based on techniques he devised himself, from things as simple as taking playing cards out of their box. Being from Toronto, I've known Mahdi for several years and have watched as his magic has evolved over that time. It's been a remarkable journey to observe and this brief national television appearance is, hopefully, just another step on the path.

So take a look and see if he manages to fool the great Penn & Teller:

Ironic Playing Cards

This weekend, at an excursion/party at a cottage in Buckhorn, Ontario (I had never heard of it either), I was asked if I would perform  for a bit and I agreed. Most cottages contain a deck of cards or three and I was handed this deck to perform with:

The deep, deep irony of this is that Ernst & Young is where my parents met. So I did get a life that way.

Weird.

Last time on Magic Tonight

We're up and running at our new location, just 400 feet from our old one, and we're loving the additional space. I was joined by comedy magician Chris Mayhew who recently returned from a tour across China with a new show which is replete with Mayhem.

Magic Tonight runs weekly at The Studio in Toronto. Readers of this blog can use the code reality for a discount on the price of tickets and dinner when purchasing online.

Fresh from the cutting room

With special thanks to Toronto's resident magic video elf, Chris Mayhew, I'm happy to share a compilation of my work over the past few years.

I can recommend his services most highly.