SINCE WE ANNOUNCED THE AVAILABILITY OF THE KISS LECTURE online as a pdf, we have had some very nice comments about the 50 page document.
One magician emailed us ”Many thanks for the downloads. The documents are really spendidly presented and it is going to be a pleasure reading them. This makes a refreshing change!”
This is particulalrly gratifying [...]
Posted on August 31st, 2008 by John
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IT’S ALWAYS NICE TO SEE VENTRILOQISTS venture beyond the cheeky boy wooden dummy to present their craft. Not that there is anything wrong with that format as witness the fame of Charlie McCarthy, Archie Andrews, Lord Charles and other stars of the up and down lip movement.
But I always admired the presentation of Senor Wences who [...]
Posted on August 31st, 2008 by John
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I HAVE OFTEN WRITTEN OF MY TOTAL ADMIRATION for John Ramsay, one of the finest close-up magicians I ever saw. He was a short, rotund little man with a shock of white hair, dressed in a conservative three piece suit with a Scottish twinkle in his eye as he would wind you up in his [...]
Posted on August 30th, 2008 by John
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HERE’S A PERFORMING TIP that was passed onto me by Pat Page, that most generous of ideas men. I, like Pat, do quite a few weddings, dinners and the like where we perform close-up magic at the guest’s tables.
But what pays off handsomely is to offer at the end of the dinner to present a small [...]
Posted on August 28th, 2008 by John
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IT WAS ONE OF THOSE MIXED EMOTION DAYS. Sadness at the early passing of Chris Pratt, one of The Magic Circle’s outstanding and long serving officers together with the warm exchange of memories and highlights of a man who enjoyed his magic and gave so much to the art in all directions. Over two hundred people [...]
Posted on August 27th, 2008 by John
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I UNDERSTAND THAT ONE OF MY FAVOURITE MAGICIANS, JEFF HOBSON will be lecturing at the forthcoming convention at Eastbourne on….The Egg Bag.Some of you will have seen my recent blog on Egg Bags and my recent revival of interest after fifty years so I look forward to this feature. Obviously it’s to help him sell some [...]
Posted on August 26th, 2008 by John
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MUCH EARLIER THIS YEAR I PUBLISHED A PIECE about sponge balls and many magi have asked if I could repeat the blog.
Certainly!
So – do you do sponge balls? Of course you do. Everybody does but I think we are all guilty of unwittingly revealing the secret.
Let me tell you a story. When I was seventeen [...]
Posted on August 25th, 2008 by John
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FOLLOWING A FANTASTIC CAREER AS AN OUTSTANDING MAGICIAN, Channing Pollock went into the film business and starred in a number of films made in Europe. Not as a magician in a guest role but as a leading actor although he did some magic during the movies. These met with reasonable success of which the most [...]
Posted on August 24th, 2008 by John
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I’M OFTEN ASKED WHO WAS THE GREATEST CLOSE-UP MAGICIAN I’ve ever seen? Well, I can go back fifty years and give you my opinion acknowledging that by reputation alone there were obviously some greats in the period before my time. I thinking here of Nate Leipzig and Max Malini and whilst I know that time [...]
Posted on August 23rd, 2008 by John
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THIS IS ASBSOLUTELY TRUE..Yesterday I did a sixty minute show for a club with an audience of a hundred and twenty and at the risk of appearing boastful it was an absolute burster. Around thirty to forty people came up to me afterwards with genuine ,wonderful comments about the show and about the entertainment factor They also wanted to talk about magic [...]
Posted on August 21st, 2008 by John
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