magic is about honesty
everything here is true
except for the bits I made up
The Evening Gala show: (L to R)
“Pop” Haydin, Michael Close, Chris Pillsowrth, (some guy), Nicholas Wallace
Earlier this year, I took part in the Browser’s Bash, a special one-day convention attended by over three hundred magicians in Toronto. They recently published their retrospective. It was a wonderful day full of great magic.
If someone has shown you a card trick at some point in your life, odds are it was this one. It's not popular because it's necessarily the most miraculously astonishing thing you've ever seen. You probably wouldn't see it on a David Blaine or David Copperfield special, but it has the advantage of being one of those tricks that is knowledge-based rather than skill-based.
Often after a show someone will ask me how much I have to practice certain things. Some of the pieces in my show are extremely difficult. If I don't practice for more than a day, I start to feel rusty. But in other tricks, the secret does absolutely all of the heavy lifting for me. Once I know the secret, I could put the trick down for years and pick it up again the next time. (Although I'd probably forget what I was supposed to say, the trick would still work!)
This trick (if you're interested in learning) is especially rewarding for kids to learn because you can learn the steps and remember them and when you try it, you get immediate feedback. (You either have the right card or you don't.) So if you're curious to add a bit of magical mind-reading to your next social gathering, you can try and pick up:
(Hope you like math nerds with British accents.)
You'll notice she mentions modular arithmetic, but for whatever reason, they skip that part of the explanation. Which is ok, because six years ago, they already explained it five years ago with a slightly more advanced version that requires a bit more mental arithmetic, but still manageable:
It was just announced that in 2021, Canada — more specifically Quebec City — will be hosting "FISM". Short for Fédération Internationale des Sociétés Magiques, it is an international organization of magicians and their conference, which happens every three years, is a combination of get together and a competition which is informally known as magic's Olympics. The news was made earlier today at the current conference in Busan, South Korea.
This is the first time that the conference has come to North America.
Stephen Pinker is one of the most articulate defenders of.... well... whatever it is he feels like defending. I feel as though I've been out of University for just long enough to feel disconnected from the idealogical strife on many campuses. But when it comes to values like this, it's nice to be reminded of why they should be cherished.
Here is Prof. Pinker speaking at Arizona State University some months back:
Tonight, I'll be performing downtown at The Lockhart. This truly magical spot is the city's very special Harry-Potter-inspired bar. When it comes to magic and atmosphere, they don't mess around.
This is a strictly informal performance and completely free to attend. You can just turn up for drinks and ask to see some magic. No dress code, although if you were inclined to wear your most Harry-Potter-y outfit, that would be cool. And space is extremely limited so you are gently encouraged to arrive early.
The Lockhart
1479 Dundas Street West
(Dundas & Dufferin, Toronto)
Tuesday, July 3
7:00 - 9:00 PM
When we put on events, we want everyone around us to be having a wonderful time. It turns out it's very hard to do and takes a lot of work. Or does it?
It turns out that for the cost of a payphone call you can dramatically improve someone's perception of how their live overall is going. One of my intellectual heroes, Professor Daniel Dennett of Tufts University explains;
(Yes, that is a rather prestigious group assembled around that table. This was a conference organized in 2012 and there are a few days worth of their conversations scattered around.)
But the lesson to take is that when it comes to making people happy in the moment (in the long term is much harder) a lot of it hinges on details which would seem from an outside observer to be insignificant and trivial. Putting on a successful event means extraordinary attention to detail. It does, in the end, turn out to be a lot of hard work. But when you pull it off, the results are magic.
