Ye Olde Magick Blogge

  Going in a radically different direction for today’s entry, here’s Kent Gunn performing the Fun Shop Cups and Balls. It’s available for purchase here, and if you’re interested in seeing his other work, here’s his Youtube channel. If you don’t know Kent Gunn, go hunt down his posts over on the Magic Cafe, and [...]

It’s “Cups and Balls Month” here on Ye Olde Magick Blogge, and if you’re going to start off a month, you might as well start with a bang. This is a very robust routine, and it’s pretty telling that Ricky Jay used this to close his 52 Assistants show, which was otherwise completely card-related. Magicians [...]

  Having magic on a daytime TV talk show isn’t new, but it appears that Ellen DeGeneres has shown more interest than most in getting magicians who aren’t necessarily considered A-list stars (in the magic community, anyway, seeing as how Neil Patrick Harris has done pretty well for himself as an actor). Granted, she has [...]

I lost it watching this. Patton Oswalt’s an excellent stand-up comedian when it comes to delving into nerdy/geeky topics, and I think we have to admit there’s nothing nerdier or geekier than magic. Here he is talking about a magician that followed him at a comedy gig once, from his DVD “My Weakness is Strong”. [...]

Oh come on, Mr. Daniels, tell us how you really feel! Paul Daniels basically had some choice words about the fact that Blackpool was going to be hosting FISM in 2012. Lamenting the current state of the city compared with how it used to be, Daniels said, “”Now, it’s rough, tasteless, bawdy, scruffy and you [...]

This was originally published on the old ye olde on March 14, 2007. Here’s a sobering quote from John Carney’s Carneycopia. It’s in the middle of some commentary aimed at the current magic scene. There also exist collectors of secrets who hoard information, which is never put to use for either bettering their lives, or [...]

Some guys in my local circle of magician buddies have been getting the damp jeans over Paul Vigil’s trick Diplopia. I don’t want to refer to them directly by name, so let’s just arbitrarily call them… oh, I don’t know… Gamie J Drant and Bes Warker, and I can assure you that there isn’t anybody [...]

This is neat. Jon Racherbaumer did a small feature on Jay Ose, and included this video showing Jay Ose doing a gambling demonstration for Joan Blondell in a promotional film for “The Cinncinati Kid”, where he was a performer and consultant. Perhaps most interesting is the fact that, for that film, he actually was a [...]

This article was originally published on the old Ye Olde Magick Blogge, on March 11, 2007 When in the mood for a little larceny, pickpockets sometimes brought their own signs saying “Beware of Pickpockets” to large gatherings of people. They’d put the signs in a visible place and then stand off to the side, watching [...]

I like card tricks, but I don’t like card tricks that feel like card tricks. I really don’t. If somebody’s going to pull out a deck of cards, then I want a clean “Travellers” as a minimum. Maybe a Sankey’s “Back in time” or a convincing All Backs or a full deck Oil and Water. [...]